Inconsistencies in syllable lesson,practice and quiz.

Question

In the syllables lesson con-stan-te and sub-li-mi-nal appear to be correct as this is typed and also in the lesson. However in the practice "cons-tan-te" and in the quiz "su-bli-mi-nal" are divided as I have written and stated as correct. I haven't checked Reál Academía for accuracy, (and not sure how to use that website) but wondering which is correct?

Answer 1

I could not find the answer at R. A. E. because I'm not that good at using it, but I did ask a woman I know from Spain about constante and she said it is cons-tan-te. I did not ask about subliminal. My guess for the first one is that Spanish does not pronounce the letter blend "st" in an initial position without an "e" before it so to create a syllable "stan" would be odd to the Spanish linguistic thinking and so the "s" goes on the "con" in the breakdown.

I don't have a guess on subliminal but if you want to have a go at finding out from the Real Academía here is a link:

www.rae.es

I also checked the 2 Spanish dictionary books that I have and no separation by syllables is given for any words. This may not be important in Spanish grammar.

My answer is always, find a recording by a native and do your best to imitate it (I don't do well with written guides on how to pronounce things). But I like your reasoning. :) - bosquederoble, Oct 22, 2015

Gracias. Your right it's about listening and repeating and not worrying about writing. - Jubilado, Oct 22, 2015

True, but when you are typing or writing a sentence you want to know the proper way to divide it at the end of a line. I may be just a grammar Nazi! I also noticed that syllable division is not in my - darcyterry, Oct 22, 2015

Collins dictionary - darcyterry, Oct 22, 2015

Thank you so much for the feedback. I'll go on rae and become more familiar with it. - darcyterry, Oct 22, 2015

Answer 2

You are right, the correct way to separate two words in syllables is as you said:

cons-tan-te

su-bli-mi-nal

Jubilado: The syllables separation is not the most important thing in Spanish grammar, but it is quite important. This influences to know when a word have a "hiato" or a "diptongo".

For example, the word maíz should be a monosylabic word, but this word is accented in the letter i. So, the word is divided in two syllables: ma - íz. This is known as **hiato*.

Thanks for the information especialy "hiato" (hiatus [como jaiétis] in English) and "diptongo" (diphthong in English) - Jubilado, Oct 24, 2015