When do Spanish words require accent marks?

• Check the last letter of a word.

• Answer the question: Does the word end in a vowel (a, e, i, o, u), n, or s?

  • If the answer is yes, then the stress falls in the second to last syllable.

    • For instance, take the word camino(road)

    • It has three syllables: ca-mi-no

    • It ends in the vowel “o”

    • Then, the stress falls on the second to last syllable, shown in red: ca-mi-no

  • If the answer is no, then the stress falls in the last syllable.

    • Take, for example, the word papel(paper)

    • It has two syllables: pa-pel

    • It does not end in a vowel, but in a consonant “l”

    • Therefore, the stress falls on the last syllable: pa-pel

Here are some examples:

Noticed anything unusual? Right! None of the previous examples have written accent marks. Why? Spanish does not write accent marks on words that follow the rules described above. On the contrary, Spanish requires written accent marks only on the words that break the previous rules (the “rule-breakers”).

Ready to find out when accent marks are needed? Keep reading!

A diphthong is formed in Spanish when two vowels are adjacent within the same syllable. Spanish diphthongs are always composed of a strong vowel (a, e, o) and a weak vowel (i, u) or two weak vowels:

• Strong + weak: For instance, the word memoria(memory) has a diphthong, can you spot it? Right! The diphthong ia, at the end, is composed of a weak vowel i, followed by a strong vowel a.

• Weak + weak: Let’s take, for instance, the name Luis. It contains a weak + weak diphthong: ui.

Here’s a chart with all possible diphthong vowel combinations.

Homonyms are words that are spelled the same or sound the same, but have different meanings. Monosyllabic words (words that only contain one syllable) in Spanish do not generally require a written accent, unless they are homonyms with another monosyllabic word.

For example: tú(you) and tu(your) sound exactly the same, but are used very differently. To tell the homonyms apart, one of each pair requires an accent mark.

This also applies to disyllabic (words containing two syllables) homonyms. For example, porqué(reason) vs. porque(because).

Here’s a complete list of Spanish monosyllabic and disyllabic homonyms.

Spanish interrogative and exclamative words (words used in questions and exclamations) require an accent mark to tell them apart from non-interrogative or exclamative homonyms. For instance:

Here's a complete list of Spanish interrogative and exclamative homonyms.

When (, , and ) are attached to a verb, the stress may be shifted to the third or fourth syllable from the end. In such cases, the stressed syllable requires a written accent following general rule #3.

Let’s take for instance the command da((you) give).

• You can add an indirect object pronoun to say “give me”: dame.

• You can also add another pronoun (and another syllable) like lo(it) to say: “give it to me.”

• You will end up with a three syllable word with the stress on da which results in “dá-me-lo.”

  An accent needs to be placed on the third to last syllable to comply with rule #3.

​​For more on object pronouns head over to our post on direct and indirect object pronouns in Spanish.

Let’s see some possible combos with pronouns:

One way to build adverbs in Spanish is to add the ending -mente to some . formed this way require accent marks only when the adjectives originally had them, as seen in the following chart: