Don't get into a panic! You use diphthongs every day - but not for swimming!

As you've seen on previous pages, each of the vowel sounds in Spanish is very distinct.

When 2 vowels come together, they may form a diphthong.

Any combination of i or u with another vowel automatically becomes *one syllable in Spanish (a diphthong), because both of these vowels are inherently weak.

The other vowels [A, E, O] are strong - and each of these usually represents a whole syllable - even when side-by-side with another strong vowel.

When any of the strong vowels [[A, E, O] are in combination with a weak vowel [i or u], the strong vowel is " louder ."

	A	E	I	O	U
A	aa	ae	ai, ay	ao	au
E	ea	ee	ei, ey	eo	eu
I	ia	ie	---	io	iu
O	oa	oe	oi, oy	oo	ou
U	ua	ue	ui, uy	uo	---