FHUHS Spanish

There are essentially only 3 rules on the use of accents in Spanish, and they’re fairly easy to learn.

Special Terminology

Here are a few terms that are helpful to know:

• Stress: this refers to the actual vocal stress within the word when you speak it
• Penultimate: a very fancy way of saying next-to-last. It always refers to the next-to-last syllable in the word.
• Dipthong: refers to a combination of a strong vowel and a weak vowel which is pronounced as part of the same syllable.

Background Information

It may be helpful to remember that the pronunciation of words in Spanish came before the spelling was finalized, so the written accents are generally just an indication of a departure from the normal pronunciation rules. For the most part, Spanish pronunciation is very regular and coincides perfectly with the spelling.

Another thing to keep in mind is that when you’re counting syllables in Spanish, that you should always count from the end of the word. When you refer to the syllable that carries the stress, it’s really important to say such things as the last syllable or the penultimate syllable, rather than to refer to the first, second, or third syllables of a word.

It’s also helpful to know the difference between strong vowels (a, e, o) and weak vowels (i, u). Two strong vowels together will always be in separate syllables, while a strong and a weak vowel together will form a dipthong.

The Rules

Here are the three rules:

1. The normal stress on any word in Spanish that doesn’t end in a vowel, an n, or an s will be on the last syllable. For example:
   • nivel
   • ciudad
   • español
   • caminar
2. On any word that does end in a vowel, an n, or an s the natural stress will be on the penultimate, or next-to-last syllable. This is the case for most verb forms, of course. For example:
   • carpeta
   • estudioso
   • bonita
   • hablo
3. If the pronunciation of a Spanish word varies from the above two rules, then it must carry a written accent to show the departure from the norm. For example:
   • teléfono
   • camión
   • fácil
   • habláis

There are some special cases where a word in Spanish will carry a written accent to differentiate it from an otherwise identically spelled word. For example:

• sí (yes) vs. si (if)
• ésta (the demonstrative pronoun meaning “this feminine-gender thing”) vs. esta (the demonstrative adjective which must always be followed by a feminine-gender noun).
• él (he) vs el (the masculine singular definite article meaning “it”)