Spanish accents and stress syllables What is a

Spanish accents and stress syllables

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 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.

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.

• 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

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. • • 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!) – Examples without accent:

Rule # 2 (llana) • 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).

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).

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. "

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.