Diphthongs and hiatuses are situations in the Spanish language in which two vowels come together in a single word. Both have similarities to each other, which means that many people do not know how to distinguish them correctly.
Knowing how to distinguish what is a diphthong and what is a hiatus is a great indicator of having a great general culture and a fairly high knowledge about the Spanish language and its secrets, thus becoming a person with a great culture. general and who is respected by the whole world due to his great mastery of the language.
On the other hand, not knowing the difference between diphthongs and hiatuses makes us remain among the most educated people as authentic cultural illiterates who know nothing about the rules of the Spanish language and who are uneducated people. believe, this could close many doors for you both in personal life and in professional life.
It really is very easy to learn to differentiate diphthongs and hiatuses, since there are some key differences that will make you never get confused between these words again. If you want to know what these words are, I advise you to keep reading since I offer them to you as always, from doncomos.com
What do you need to differentiate diphthongs and hiatuses?
- A little reading comprehension to know the difference between diphthongs and hiatuses.
Instructions to differentiate diphthongs and hiatuses
- Definition of diphthong: As I have always defended, when differentiating between two different words, the definition of the words must be carried out separately first, since knowing the meaning of the word will help us understand better the difference between this word and another similar word and will help not to make mistakes. A diphthong is a word in which two vowel letters coincide together within the same word and within the same syllable. Some good examples of what a diphthong is are words like aire, which is divided between the syllables ai-re, having the letters ai within the same syllable creating a diphthong. Other good examples would be the word guapa, which would be gua-pa, with the syllable gua with two letters in the same syllable and the word ruido, divided into rui-do, which again has the syllable rui as a syllable with two vowel letters. There is a variant of diphthongs called triphthong, in which not two, but three vowel letters coincide within the same syllable. This is rare and occurs in words like woof and meow in which, as you will see, there are three vowel letters within the same syllable.
- Definition of hiatus: Now that we know the definition of the word diphthong, it is time to define the word hiatus, since we need to know the meaning of both words in order to make a correct definition of them. We know as a hiatus a word with two vowels together within the same word, but that are in different syllables. We have some examples in words like laughing, which is laughing and has the letters together but separated into syllables. Hiatuses are very common in the Spanish language and appear in different ways throughout the Spanish language, being even more common than the diphthongs themselves.
- Difference between diphthong and hiatus: Now that we know the meaning of the words, we can explain the difference between the two, since we already have enough capacity to know how to distinguish them and to know perfectly which is which. The main difference between a diphthong and a hiatus is that the diphthongs have the letters together in the same syllable and in the hiatus they are in different syllables, which completely changes the pronunciation of the word. When two letters are joined and one of them is a vowel called closed (la i or la u) that is accented, what is called breaking the diphthong occurs. This occurs in words like caida, which, if it were a diphthong, would be called caida, without an accent, but it is called caida because it is in different syllables.
Tips to differentiate diphthongs and hiatuses
- How not to confuse them: The easiest way not to confuse a diphthong and a hiatus is to read the word and divide it by syllables. For example, if we have the word huída, we would have huí-da, which would be a hiatus because they are divided into different words. Another curious thing is that the word hiato would be hia-to, for which ironically it would be a diphthong. Both diphthongs and hiatuses have accents, but in general, there are more chances of a word being a hiatus if it is accented, so check if the word in question has a tilde inside it.