how is it prononounced?

I don't know her,
but note that there is no A in her first name;
hence, it shoud not be said as u spelled it "Co-tay".

It shoud be either Coat, as u said,
or
Cote, whose last letter, is a short e,
as in gEt out of bEd and go place a bEt
and fly on a jet

or
short e as in Betty.




David

If it's Spanish, it would be Co tay, as you suggest. Chile suggests Spanish, but I wonder if it could be Porteguese or something else, instead?

Cote is Spanish but not pronounced co-tay.

The e is usually "mid-open", close to to what David said, "jet"

That is false ( to twist an A out of an e; that is not done in Spanish ).
Americans ofen make that error and sound like fools.
It shoud be like Bette in Bette Midler.

Pronouncing Spanish as u have suggested, Roger, is not OK.




David

the -ay sound in English is like the é sound in French & Spanish

play in English and olé in Spanish rhyme

the unaccented e is much shorter and more like the e in hen or pen in English.

It is indeed.





David

David... you do realize that other languages have pronunciation that differ from American English.

You might like Spanish pronunciation... everything in Spanish is spelled fonetically.\

The way the "e" is pronounced in Spanish may differ from country to country (many of these things do). I learned Spanish in Guatemala and Mexico and would say it as in between the long "a" of "bay" and the short "meh"... but closer to "bay". I think this is typical of Latin American countries.

"meh" is not anything.
Hence, it has no pronunciation.





David

(I just went and double checked)... her name in Spanish has an accent over the "e".

Meh.

Which makes it even more like the "jet" or "bet"

The purpose of an accent mark
is to indicate which syllable receives the greater stress.

Just a quick question... how many people giving such authoritative opinions on this topic actually speak Spanish with any fluency?

((not that it matters))

I don't know about David, I think Contrex habla muy bien, and I do..

At least a bit better than in English...

Americans who twist an e into a long a in Spanish
sound like ignorant hicks.





David

The problem with the American long 'A' is that we make it into a dipthong (ay-ee). David is right that this is one of the things that makes us Americans speaking Spanish sound like Americans when speaking Spanish. When I was studying, this was one of the things we were coached on (after getting the "r" thing down).

However I don't think it is correct to say that the Spanish "e" is exactly the same as the American short "e". The word "Olé" is the perfect example... that isn't the same sound as the "e" in "bed". Neither is the "e" in Peru (at least not the way people from Peru say it).

That's why I said "close to", because English do not have some of the Spanish sounds...

Francis, as a point of grammar,
it is correct to say "do not" when one is discussing more than one person or multiple things,
but say "does not" when discussing one thing, like the English language.

Therefore, it 'd be correct to render it:
"That's why I said 'close to', because English does not have some of the Spanish sounds..."





David

Americans speaking Spanish like ignorant hicks = too funny

In the spirit of what is proper pronunciation, taking into consideration of different geographical accents, of any language, I have a question.

Can anyone shed light on the following? It concerns my accent in Spanish. Obviously it is difficult without hearing me speak.

The Spanish language that I learned in school and college <university> was the Spanish language from Spain. I want to say Castilian, but not certain enough.

English is taught in the British manner or the Amercan version of the English language, correct. What about Spanish.

I always assumed that I spoke Spanish with an American accent.

Not too long ago I was speaking with someone in Spanish. After they left, the next person, who overheard the conversation, *accused* me of having a Cuban accent. Now I thought this to be very funny, and believed that the person was simply giving me a rude compliment.

There was no Spanglish involved....Americanized Spanish. We were not using words particular to Cubans or American Cubans.

As an aside, I have had many people, including people from the UK try to guess what part of England from where I hail.

Could it be that I speak funny in both languages? What is the deal with Spanish spoken with a certain accent? could it be that the second person simply did not care for my best attempt at conversing with another person in Spanish? They thought I butchered this most beautiful of Languages?

Just curious.