Spanish accents and stress syllables

1. Spanish Rocks Spanish accents and stress syllables

2. What is a stress syllable • Every word has a stressed syllable, it is the one that carries the most intonation in your voice.  • For example • In the word "baby,", the stress is on the first syllable (ba) making the second syllable (by) weaker.  • Baby is pronounced as BA-by, not ba-BY.  • In Spanish there are a few simple rules as to where the stress lies in a word.  When there is an exception to these rules, a written accent is used.  • This written accent is found above vowels and is a slanted line going from left to right.

3. Accent marks look like this: á    é    í    ó    ú • Pay attention to accent marks! Two words might be spelled exactly the same, but the presence of an accent mark can completely change their meaning. • Example: • esta means “this” while está means “is.” • Llamo means “I call” while llamó means “He, she, or you called.” • Accent marks are also used to distinguish how a word is used • Example: • dónde and donde both mean “where,” the first is used to ask a question, the second is used in statements. • Whenever a vowel carries a written accent, the stress in that word is on that syllable. 

4. Spanish is a unique language in that by just looking at a written word, without having heard it, you are able to pronounce it.  • Words are classified in three categories depending on the location of the accentuated syllable. • These are: • Aguda– the accented syllable is the last syllable • Llana– the second to last • Esdrújula– the syllable before the second to last

5. Rule # 1 (aguda) • If the word has the primary stress on the last syllable (called an oxytone), and it ends with "n", "s", or a vowel, the accent is written. • No other oxytones have a written accent, excluding exceptional cases. • Examples with accent : • pasión (passion), • limón (lime or lemon), • inglés (English), • Alá (Allah, the Arabian deity), • Canadá. • Examples without accent: • internet (no accent, stress on last syllable), • estar (one of the "to be" verbs in Spanish), • calor (heat, warmth), • Alcohol (alcohol. Remember, this has the stress on the last syllable!)

6. Rule # 2 (llano) • If the word has the primary stress on the penultimate syllable (second to last syllable called a paroxytone), and it does NOT end with "n", "s", or a vowel, the accent is written. • No other paroxytones have a written accent, excluding exceptional cases. • Examples with accent: • cárcel (jail), • árbol (tree), • González (a family name, but if written Gonzales, there is no accent.) • Examples without an accent: • ingles (groins, usually very different from "inglés"), • libro (book), • gato (cat), • perro (dog).

7. Rule # 3 (Esdrújula) • If the word has the primary stress on any syllable before the penultimate syllable (called a proparoxytone), then the accent is written. • There is no exception to this rule. • Examples: • América, México, • Pacífico (peaceful, capitalized here in reference to the Pacific Ocean).

8. Other purposes • Besides indicating the syllable in which to stress a word, written accents also serve to distinguish between two words that are spelled the same.  • Example: • "si" and "sí".  • "Si" without an accent means "if" and "sí" with an accent means "yes." 

9. A few more details • Written accents are used as a tool to make the pronunciation of written Spanish clear to the reader.  • They do not change the pronunciation of the vowel, they just put the stress on the syllable the vowel is in.  • Whenever a word has an intonation, that is an exception to the first or second rule above, the written accent portrays where to put the stress in your voice.