So I'm aware that transcription into Japanese is not always clear-cut, and
there are plenty of exceptions. It sort of makes sense that "Australia" is
オーストラリア not *オーストレリア and "stadium" is スタジアム not *ステージアム, perhaps because those
are partial transliteration, not pure transcription. But why is "studio" スタジオ?
Shouldn't it be _at least_ be something like *ストジオ? Or are dictionaries wrong
about its actual etymology (i.e. from English)?
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question
etymology english-to-japanese phonology phonetics transcription
Why is the English word "studio" transcribed as スタジオ?
The combination `tu` in some words is rendered as タ. As far as I can remember
now, ト is not used.

  * bathtub バスタブ
  * study スタディー
  * tuck タック
  * tumbler タンブラー

In addition, [etymology of _studio_ is the same as that of
_study_](http://www.etymonline.com/word/studio) (from [Lantin
_studium_](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/studium#Latin)). To my ears, ストジオ
and スタジオ are equally bad as the phonetic approximation of _studio_ , but
somehow スタジオ is at least understandable for those who already know the facts
above. スツジオ might have been another possible option ( _two_ /tu/ is ツー, _tool_
/tuːl/ is ツール), but I find it hard to pronounce.

Most people today understand the sounds /tu/ and /di/ that appear in loanwords
(See: [What "non-standard" katakana are commonly
used?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/19201/5010)), but these were not
available in the past. Had this word been introduced firstly in the 21
century, it would have been ストゥディオ.
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answer