Spanish Accent Rules

Spanish accent rules come down to one question: is the word stressed where Spanish expects it to be? Words ending in a vowel, -n or -s are normally stressed on the second-to-last syllable (ca-sa, ha-blan); words ending in any other consonant are stressed on the last syllable (ha-blar, re-loj). If a word breaks that pattern, it gets a written accent (tilde) on the stressed vowel: café, canción, árbol, lápiz. Two extra cases add accents too: words stressed three syllables from the end always carry one (música), and some short words carry one to tell them apart from a twin (sí “yes” vs si “if”). Everything else on this page follows from these rules.

The two default stress rules

So the written accent is a signal: “the stress is not where you’d guess”. Native speakers do not memorise which words have accents; they hear the stress and apply the rule.

The four kinds of word by stress

Spanish grammar books name words by where the stress falls. Knowing the names helps when you read explanations in Spanish:

• Agudas (stress on the last syllable): accent if they end in a vowel, -n or -s. Sofá, también, inglés, papá have one; amor, feliz, verdad do not.
• Llanas or graves (stress on the second-to-last): accent if they end in a consonant other than -n or -s. Árbol, fácil, azúcar, móvil have one; mesa, examen, martes do not.
• Esdrújulas (third-to-last): always an accent. Música, teléfono, sábado, rápido, miércoles, pájaro.
• Sobresdrújulas (fourth-to-last or earlier): always an accent. These are mostly verbs with pronouns attached: dígamelo (tell it to me), cómpraselo (buy it for him).

How to decide in three steps

1. Say the word and find the stressed syllable. ca-MIÓN, LÁ-piz, ven-TA-na.
2. Look at the last letter. Vowel, n or s? Or another consonant?
3. Compare with the default. If the stress matches the default, no accent. If not, or if it is three or more syllables from the end, write the accent on the stressed vowel.

Worked examples: camion ends in -n, so the default is CA-mion; but we say ca-MION, so we write camión. Lapiz ends in -z, so the default is la-PIZ; but we say LA-piz, so: lápiz. Ventana ends in a vowel, default ven-TA-na, which is how we say it: no accent.

Diphthongs and broken diphthongs

The vowels i and u are “weak”; a, e, o are “strong”. A weak vowel next to another vowel normally joins it in one syllable (a diphthong): bien (one syllable), cuidado (cui-da-do), ciudad (ciu-dad), causa (cau-sa).

• If the accent falls on the strong vowel of a diphthong, follow the normal rules: canción, después, murciélago.
• If the stress falls on the weak vowel, the diphthong is broken, and the weak vowel always takes an accent, even if the normal rules say no: día (dí-a), país (pa-ís), río, baúl, oír, María, frío, librería. This is why the imperfect endings carry accents: tenía, vivía, comíamos.

Compare continuo (continuous, con-TI-nuo) with continúo (I continue, con-ti-NÚ-o): the accent shows the broken diphthong.

Accents that tell twin words apart

Most one-syllable words never take an accent (fue, dio, vio, pie, mes). The exceptions are pairs where the accent separates two meanings. This is called the tilde diacrítica.

Question and exclamation words also carry an accent when they ask or exclaim, even inside a sentence: qué, quién, cuál, cómo, dónde, cuándo, cuánto. ¿Dónde vives? / No sé dónde vive. But: la casa donde vivo. The full explanation is in que vs qué.

When adding letters adds or removes an accent

Because accents depend on stress and the final letter, a word can gain or lose its accent when it changes form:

• Plurals: canción → canciones (now a llana ending in -s: no accent); examen → exámenes (now esdrújula: accent); joven → jóvenes; inglés → ingleses.
• Pronouns attached to verbs: compra → cómpralo; dando → dándome; decir + me + lo → decírmelo.
• Adverbs in -mente keep the adjective’s accent: fácil → fácilmente, rápido → rápidamente. Lento → lentamente (no accent to keep).
• Feminine forms: francés → francesa; alemán → alemana.

Accents that change the meaning

Because stress is part of a word’s identity, one accent can make a different word. Some pairs learners meet early:

• papa (potato; the Pope) / papá (dad)
• hablo (I speak) / habló (he spoke)
• esta (this) / está (is)
• ingles (groins) / inglés (English)
• termino (I finish) / terminó (she finished) / término (term)
• publico (I publish) / publicó (he published) / público (public)

In verbs this matters a lot: the accent often separates present from past (canto / cantó) or present from future (hablaras / hablarás).

Rules that changed in 2010

The Real Academia Española updated a few rules in its 2010 spelling guide. Older books may still show the old forms:

• solo (only, alone) no longer needs an accent, even when it means “only”. Solo quiero agua. The accented sólo is now discouraged, though not strictly wrong where it avoids real ambiguity.
• Demonstratives este, ese, aquel (and feminine and plural forms) no longer take accents as pronouns: Quiero este, no ese.
• Some one-syllable words lost their accents because they count as one syllable in spelling: guion, truhan, fie, rio (past of reír), crie.
• o between numbers (3 o 4) no longer takes an accent.

Accents on capital letters

Capital letters keep their accents: Ángel, ÁFRICA, Él vino ayer. The old idea that capitals don’t need accents comes from typewriters, which made them hard to type. The RAE is clear that leaving them out is a spelling mistake.

Names and borrowed words

Names follow the same rules as any other word: Ramón, Lucía, Martínez, Pérez, Héctor, Óscar, Bogotá, Perú, México, Canadá. Surnames ending in -ez are usually llanas and so take an accent (González, Rodríguez). People may choose to write their own name without an accent, but in standard spelling it is required.

Words borrowed from other languages and fully adapted into Spanish follow the rules too: fútbol, béisbol, récord, cómic, láser. Words still written as in the original language, usually in italics, keep their own spelling: software, pizza.

Training your ear for stress

The rules only work if you can hear the stressed syllable. A simple trick: say the word several times, putting a heavy stress on a different syllable each time (CA-mion, ca-MION). The version that sounds right is the real stress. Listening to slow, clear audio and repeating words aloud also helps, especially with long verbs like comunicábamos.

Common mistakes

Practice: accent or not?

1. arbol
2. cancion
3. mesa
4. musica
5. reloj
6. jovenes
7. pais
8. Quiero un te.
9. Si, tu tienes razon.
10. ¿Donde esta mi movil?

Quick answers

What is the accent mark called in Spanish? La tilde (or acento ortográfico). The ~ on ñ is also often called a tilde, but it is a different mark.

Does Spanish use other accents, like à or ê? No. Spanish only uses the acute accent (´) on vowels, plus the dieresis on ü (pingüino).

Do accents change pronunciation? They show where the stress goes; they do not change the vowel sound itself.

How do I type Spanish accents? On a phone, hold the vowel and pick the accented letter. On Windows with the US-International keyboard, type ‘ then the vowel; on a Mac, Option + E, then the vowel.

Related: Spanish punctuation rules, Spanish capitalization rules and Spanish question words.