Re: OT: German reputation

Mark J. Reed (I think) wrote:
> >... whereas I regularly hear native Spanish speakers say /a.di'os/
> >as 3 syllables,
Me too. At least, with a clear [i] (but barely syllabic) rather than [j].
(Maybe too they're trying to sound "American"??)

even though the rules for Spanish diphthongs  we were
> >taught in school would make it /a'djos/ (or maybe /ad'jos/).
Right. Certainly if it was ['di.os] there would be a written accent as in
mío, tío etc. OTOH there's guión 'hyphen' which I think is clearly 2-syl
[gi'(j)on].  Aside from the verb ending (preterit 3sing) -ió (which is
always clearly ['jo] in my experience, this diphthong seems to be rather
rare in Spanish.

It's also possible that the special status of the word "dios" leads,
sometimes, to the more careful pronunciation with a fleeting [i] sound
rather than the usual [j]-- particularly when referring to the Christian
God.