¡Los acentos! http://www.fluentu.com/spanish/blog/spanish-accent-marks/

There are two basic rules in Spanish that tell us where to put the stress of a word. Stress is important, as it can sometimes be the only way to distinguish two words. It’s the difference between “insult” (IN-sult), as in “I couldn’t think of a good insult,” and “insult” (in-SULT), as in “She’s going to insult me now, I just know it.”

Intentalo… Intelligent Responsible Punctual Generous Respectful

1. Words ending in a vowel, n, or s. For words that end in a vowel, the letter “n,” or the letter “s,” the stress is on the next to last syllable. Examples:    todo (to-do) all/every   inteligente (in-te-li-gen-te) smart    el examen (e-xa-men) exam   joven (jo-ven) young    lunes (lu-nes) Monday los calcetines (cal-ce-ti-nes) socks

2. Words ending in a consonant (not n, s) For words that end in all other consonants (not “n” or “s”), the stress falls on the last syllable. Examples:      comer (co-mer)to eat  la ciudad (ciu-dad)  the city     el animal (a-ni-mal)the animal   Madrid (Ma-drid)  Madrid el profesor (pro-fe-sor)  the professor/teacher    

When to add Spanish accent marks We add accent marks to Spanish words when the stress breaks either of those two rules. Example: exámenes (e-xa-men-es) The word ends in an “s”, so according to the first rule, the stress should fall on the next to last syllable: ex-am-en-es. But it doesn’t. Rather, the word keeps the same stress as its singular form, on what is now the third to last syllable, so we add an accent mark.

Más ejemplos (rule 1) la canción (can-cion) song    también (tam-bien) also    los crímenes (cri-me-nes) crimes    jamás (ja-mas) never    inglés (in-gles) English   rápido (ra-pi-do) fast    está (es-ta) is, third person singular of the verb estar – to be

Más ejemplos (rule 2) el árbol (ar-bol) tree      la cárcel (car-cel)  jail/prison      el césped (ces-ped)  grass      débil (de-bil)  weak

Spanish homonyms: Same pronunciation, different meaning  el (masculine article: the)      él (he)      mas (but)      más (more)      se (reflexive and indirect object pronoun)      sé (I know)      si (if)      sí (yes)      te (object: you)      té: (tea)      tu (your)      tú (subject: you)

Accents on Spanish question words  Who? ¿ ?  What?   ¿ ? When? ¿ ?  Where? ¿ ?  Why? ¿ ? How? ¿ ?   Which?   ¿ ? How much/ How many? ¿ ?      

Indirect embeded questions. Whenever the word “cuánto” means “how much/many,” it carries an accent: Ej.  No sé cuántos hay. (I don’t know how many there are.) When the word “cómo” translates to “how,” it carries an accent – no matter where it falls in the sentence. (Without the accent, “como” means “like” or “as”.) Ej. No entiendo cómo lo hace. (I don’t understand how he does it.) Likewise, when “qué” means an interrogative “what,” it must carry an accent. Ej.  No sé qué hacer. (I don’t know what to do.)

As pronouns; no accent mark! When these words are not used in a question or indirect question, but rather as a pronoun, there is no accent mark. Here are three example sentences of this situation: Ej.   El chico que dijo eso es mentiroso. (The boy who said that is a liar.) Ej.  Es el parque donde conocí a tu madre. (It’s the park where I met your mother.) Ej.  No trabajo cuando estoy enferma. (I don’t work when I’m sick.)

Finally… Demostrative pronouns Spanish accents are used in feminine and masculine demonstrative pronouns (this one, that one) to differentiate them from the demonstrative adjectives (this –, that –), which are identical except that they don’t carry an accent mark. Pronouns: replace nouns. Adjectives: describe nouns. Ej. Masculine éste (this) éstos (these) ése (that) ésos (those) aquél (that over there) aquéllos (those over there) Feminine ésta (this) éstas (these) ésa (that) ésas (those) aquélla (that over there) aquéllas (those over there) Neutral  esto  (this)  eso (that) aquello(that over there)