confusion in pronounciation?

Question

Ok, i am getting a bit confused with the syllables and pronounciation.

Isn't the syllable for cinema is Ci.Ne.Ma
but when I hear people say it, I always hear it as
Cin, Ne. Ma rather than Ci.Ne.Ma

same goes for Ca.Si.No, I often hear it as Ca,SIno

Finish, Fi.Ni.Sh, I often hear it as Fin.Nish

it seems that they all sort of join together between some syllables. Would someone please tell me which way is correct or common to say? And perhaps help me to clarify the confusion. Thank you.

Answer 1

I don't know what you are saying about 'casino', but the other two show that you have a very good ear. In English there are two kinds of vowels, called short vs. long or more technically lax vs. tense. The first group includes the vowels of the following words: pit, pet, pat, put, pot (in some varieties of british english but not in the u.s.), etc. The second groups includes the vowels of Pete, pate, food, ought, father, wrote, etc. The first (short = lax) vowels do not occur in open stressed syllables, so the short 'i' of 'finish' and 'cinema' must have a consonant to close the syllable. It is not so much a question of having two 'n's as of making the 'n' be ambisyllabic, i.e., close the first syllable as well as open the next one.

Answer 2

I don't really have an answer for you. Most English speakers don't think about where the syllables are, we just talk! Because you're learning English, of course you're learning about syllables. Some of our words are made up of 3 or 4 parts, so it's helpful to know. But as you become more comfortable with English, you won't think much about how words are separated by syllables.

By the way, according to this online dictionary, it is Cin.E.Ma and Fin.Ish:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cinema
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/finish

But it won't affect how I say those words.

I wish you the best of luck!

Answer 3

Sorry, but I can hardly understand your problem. I would advise you simply to pronounce one sound after the other and to care for the stress to be in the right place. There are of course many vowels that are hardly pronounced at all. For example in "cinema", many people don´t speak the "e" or they speak it like a very short sound similar to an "e" like the "e" for example in "let" (but only a bit similar). That´s a so called "schwa".

Answer 4

I wouldn't worry about it. English has never been standardized as a language and has no equivalent of the the Académie française.

Even the Académie française has not been totally succcesful in standardizing French since Cajun and Quebec speakers of French have their own stress accents and pronunciations that don't always coincide with those of Parisian French.