Mwe or moy, what d'you reckon?

Question

So, one pronounces muy 'mwe' according to the 'rules' of pronunciation.

I am pretty sure that I have heard muy pronounced 'moy' on more than one occasion.

Anyone care to opine, along with giving the whole where you are from spiel etc.?

Gracious...

A briefs update:

I'm not asking you to tell me how I should pronounce muy, and thus we can avoid unneeded exploration into the difficulties one faces when trying to transcribe a sound into the written word.

I'm interested in where people say something akin to mooee/mwe/muhwe and where it is more like moy. By where I mean both socially and geographically...

I thought it was d'ya or d'yuh and being a surveyor I do know how to [dead] reckon. - 0074b507, Jan 31, 2011

In Bringlish the abbreviation and concatenation of 'do you' sounds more like jew than ja/d'ya/juh/d'yuh, and I am Brit. If you want to reckon on death you can have someone killed here for USD 25, which is not a pleasant thought, although a simple fact... - afowen, Jan 31, 2011

jew would be common here also, but I'm from the South (USA) and we have our own vernacular. - 0074b507, Feb 1, 2011

Answer 1

This question could work great in "Games & Challenges". The next person would try to transcribe the sounds of mooee/mwe/muhwe and moy, with all possible alternatives, and the next person tries to transcribe those answers again.

Anything resembling a sane standard of transcribing sounds is of course illegal. It would quickly grow out of proportion, though.

It would be good banter, but it escapes the point of my enquiry :-) - afowen, Feb 1, 2011

Answer 2

Moo-ee

Think 1 syllable, though. - KevinB, Jan 31, 2011

I know the pronunciation you refer to Kev(in), can I call you Kev??? I still tend to switch between the two - old habits etc. I'm just interested in who says moy and where, geographically and socially, are they from. - afowen, Jan 31, 2011

Answer 3

None of the above? Definitely not moy, does not rhyme with the English word joy. I know Lazarus hates this, but it's more like moo-ee, but slurred together. And the O's in the moo part are not the cow sound. They sound somewhat similar to the O's in hook.

Eh, you can't describe it. It doesn't sound like an English word. None of them do. Training your ear is a b*tch. Sit down at a piano or pick up a guitar and learn a song note for note without looking at the sheet music. Then tell me what muy sounds like.

mwe/moo-ee, same same but different. My point is not to write in non-phonetic English what muy sounds like, but rather to find out who says something like 'moy' and who something like 'muy/moo-ee'. - afowen, Jan 31, 2011

It's looking heavily on the mwe side at the mo, but then, aside from JO'B's comment, we don't know where your Spanish is from. I said moy for a long time, having picked it up from somewhere, and still hear it at times here in Bogotá - afowen, Jan 31, 2011

I lived in Caracas for quite a while. Most of the time nowadays I talk with Mexicans and Central Americans. Mwe is closer than moy. Closer to muhwe, with an extremely short uh. Definitely not moy, definitely not moo-wee. - KevinB, Jan 31, 2011

Answer 4

Not in my wildest imagination does "muy" sound like "soy" with an "m".

That's brilliant, I have confirmed my postulation in the first two replies. Is this difference then geographical, or what? - afowen, Jan 31, 2011

In this moment, I only have access to 3 people, one from Spain, one from Argentina and the other from Mexico. All 3 pronounce "muy" as "mwe". - Jack-OBrien, Jan 31, 2011

Answer 5

soy, joy, Roy, toy.... These English words all rhyme with the Spanish word "muy", just replace the first letter with an "m" sound.

Also, there is a pronunciation provided if you go here: http://www.spanishdict.com/translate/muy ... Just push on the sound/speaker icon.

I hope that answers your question. - MeEncantanCarasSonrisas, Jan 31, 2011

It gives me YOUR answer to my question :-). Where are you from? - afowen, Jan 31, 2011