Sutter's On-line Spanish Classroom
Rules of Stress and Accentuation
Stress is the practice of saying one syllable louder than another. All words in Spanish have stress. In the word "casa", the first syllable is stressed. Unlike English, Spanish words all have one stressed syllable. All additional syllables in the word are unstressed.
Spanish stresses unaccented words in this way:
RULE 1
If the word ends in a vowel (a e i o u) or n or s, the word is stressed on the next to the last syllable automatically.
peso, importante, pacientes, trabajan
RULE 2
If the word ends in any other letter, it is stressed on the last syllable automatically.
total, respirar, edad
RULE 3
If the word does not follow the above rules, it has an accent mark. An accent mark is a written stress. It overrides the rules stated above pointing out visually where the stress belongs. Accent marks may only be placed above vowels and are only found in the stressed syllable.
débil, corazón, termómetro
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DIPHTHONGS
A diphthong is a weak vowel together with a strong vowel in the same syllable. The weak vowels are u and i; ("You and I are weak.") The following words have diphthongs:
bueno, historia, cruel
Whenever an accent mark is needed over a diphthong, it goes over the strong vowel, never over the weak vowel. If you write an accent mark over a weak vowel, it becomes a strong vowel. Since there cannot be two strong vowels in the same syllable, an extra syllable is created.
estación, miércoles, adiós
but
frío, grúa, economía
ADDITIONAL USES OF ACCENT MARKS
Sometimes, words have accent marks not to indicate stress but to distinguish one word from its homonym pair. (sí=yes, si=if).
Additionally, all interrogatives have accents. (¿Dónde?)
Any time you see an accent mark, it always corresponds to the stressed syllable in the word, even if it is marking a homonym or an interrogative. (éste)
See Stress and Accentuation Exercise
Last modified by rsutter@cuesta.edu
Ralph Sutter's web site, Fullbean.com