Showing Stress (Part II)

Hola!

Today we are going to continue studying Spanish accents and how to use them.

We are going to introduce you to the concept of accent’s marks in Spanish.  In Spanish we only have a type of accent mark that shows when a syllable is stressed (´) 

If the stress does not obey the rules we have studied before, it must be signaled by adding an accent mark over the vowel in the correctly stressed syllable.

For example, the word útil (useful) should be stressed on the last syllable, because it ends with an L. However, because the correct pronunciation of this word is Útil and not úTIL, an accent is placed over the vowel U.

Following are a few other examples of words that require an accent mark because they do not follow the standard stress pattern.

FÁCIL

(EASY)

INFORMACIÓN

(INFORMATION)

TÍPICO

(TYPICAL)

MILLÓN

(MILLION)

Accent marks may also be used to distinguish words that are spelled and pronounced the same but have different meanings. For example, words like ''who," ''what," and ''where" are spelled with an accent mark when they are used in questions, but they are spelled without the accent mark when they are used in the answer. For example:

DÓNDE ESTÁ EL ALMACÉN?

(WHERE IS THE GROCERY STORE?)

ESTÁ DONDE VIVE CARLOS, EN IA CALLE UNIÓN.

(IT'S WHERE CARLOS LIVES, ON UNION STREET)