Spanish Accent Marks

Here you will learn the correct use of Spanish accent marks and when they are placed on vowels for proper pronunciation.

NOTE: If you came here looking for a way to type accent marks in Spanish on your computer you can find that on the next page.

Now that you know how to properly read and pronounce Spanish letters.

Or at least you do if you have gone through my Spanish pronunciation sequence, it is time to learn something else that will help you put letters together into words and syllables - the rules for choosing which syllable in a word should be stressed, and the purpose of accent marks

Spanish accent marks are very helpful actually, as you will immediately know where the stress is in the word.

Oh! I almost forgot to mention, there is only one of them to learn and it is the ( ' ) that is placed over a vowel indicating whether or not the syllable in that word should be stressed. It DOES NOT change the pronunciation of the word, just which syllable to stress.

Here are the "rules":

Without Spanish accent marks

Rule #1. If a word ends in n or s, or a vowel, the emphasis is placed on the second-to-last-syllable within that word.

gato (gah-toh) cat
perro (pehr-roh) dog
cantar (kahn-tar) to sing

Rule # 2. If a word ends in a consonant that is NOT an n or an s, then the emphasis is placed on the last syllable of that word.

hablar (ah-blar) to speak
comer (koh-mehr) to eat
beber (be-behr) to drink

With accent marks

Rule # 1.If a word stress needs to be placed on a word that does not follow the above "rules" then an accent mark is placed above the vowel on the syllable that requires the stress.

balcón (bahl-kohn) balcony
México (meh-hi-koh) Mexico
pájaro (pah-hah-roh) bird

NOTE: if the accent was NOT placed over the e in México then rule number 1 above would apply and it would be pronounce as (meh-hee-koh) which would be incorrect.

Rule # 2. Sometimes in Spanish when you add a pronoun, I, my, you , they, them to the end of a verb it changes the way the word is spelled.

If that changes the word so it does NOT meet the two rules above of words without accent marks, then an accent mark MUST be placed about the stressed vowel.

escribe (es-kree-beh) to write [notice how it follows the no accent rule # 1]
escríbelo (es-kree-beh-lo) I write [notice the accent is placed to denote stress in the same place as it is in the base word]

The same rule applies when an -es plural ending is added to nouns that end in n.