Stress, Accents and Spelling

Spanish uses a small set of marks that carry real information. Getting them right is part of accurate spelling, which is credited in dictation and in the Writing paper.

There are three jobs to know:

• Marking stress — the accent (´) shows which syllable is stressed when a word does not follow the default pattern: teléfono, inglés, jardín.
• Distinguishing words — the same accent separates pairs that are otherwise spelled identically: sí (yes) vs si (if).
• Punctuating questions and exclamations — Spanish opens them with an inverted ¿ or ¡ as well as closing with ? or !.

Two more marks complete the set: the ñ (a distinct letter, as in España) and the ü with two dots (pingüino), which tells you to pronounce the u in güe/güi.

Spanish accents are always acute (á é í ó ú), sloping up to the right. Spanish never uses a grave accent (à) or a circumflex (â). Writing the wrong direction is a spelling error.

Most Spanish words carry no written accent at all, because they follow a predictable stress pattern. The rule depends on the final letter.

Words ending in a vowel, n or s are stressed on the penultimate (second-to-last) syllable. Words ending in any other consonant are stressed on the final syllable.

Word	Ends in	Stressed syllable	Rule
ca-sa	vowel	ca-sa	penultimate
ha-blan	n	ha-blan	penultimate
mar-tes	s	mar-tes	penultimate
ha-blar	r	ha-blar	final
ciu-dad	d	ciu-dad	final
re-loj	j	re-loj	final

When a word obeys this pattern, you leave it plain. casa, hablan and ciudad all need no accent because they are already stressed where the rule predicts.

(Higher tier) These formal stress-position rules are listed as Higher-tier content in the spec. Foundation students still need the accented spellings of individual words, but the underlying rule is assessed at Higher.

The written accent does one thing: it overrides the default rule. Whenever a word is stressed somewhere the rule would not predict, you write an accent on the stressed vowel to show it.

Word	Ends in	Stress falls on	Why it needs an accent
so-fá	vowel	final	rule expects penultimate → accent overrides
in-glés	s	final	rule expects penultimate → accent overrides
jar-dín	n	final	rule expects penultimate → accent overrides
ár-bol	l	penultimate	rule expects final → accent overrides
lá-piz	z	penultimate	rule expects final → accent overrides

There is also one group that is always accented:

Any word stressed on the antepenultimate (third-to-last) syllable takes a written accent, with no exceptions: te-lé-fo-no, sá-ba-do, pá-ja-ro, bo-lí-gra-fo.

This is why plurals sometimes gain or lose an accent: joven (penultimate, no accent) becomes jóvenes (now antepenultimate, so it needs one). The stress stays on the same syllable; the accent appears to keep it there.

Some very common words are spelled the same except for an accent, and the accent is the only thing telling them apart. These matter at both tiers because a missing accent in dictation or writing gives the wrong word.

With accent	Without accent
sí — yes	si — if
tú — you (subject)	tu — your
él — he	el — the
mí — me (after a preposition)	mi — my
té — tea	te — you (object)
sé — I know	se — reflexive pronoun
más — more	mas — but (formal)

For example, Tú tienes tu libro means "You have your book" — the first tú is the subject "you", the second tu is "your". Drop the accent on the first and you have written "your" twice, which no longer makes sense.

A second family of accents appears on question words. These carry a written accent whenever they ask or exclaim something, and they do so in indirect questions too, not only direct ones.

Word	Meaning
qué	what
quién(es)	who
cómo	how
cuándo	when
dónde	where
cuánto/a	how much/many
cuál(es)	which
por qué	why

Compare the two roles of these words:

• Question: ¿Dónde vives? — "Where do you live?" (accent)
• Statement: Vivo en la ciudad donde nací. — "I live in the city where I was born." (no accent)
• Indirect question: No sé qué hacer. — "I don't know what to do." (accent, even without a question mark)

The rule is about function, not punctuation: if the word is asking or exclaiming, it takes the accent, whether or not the sentence ends in a question mark.

Spanish flags a question or exclamation from the start, so it opens with an inverted mark and closes with the normal one: ¿Cómo estás? and ¡Qué bien!. The opening mark goes at the beginning of the question itself, which is not always the start of the sentence:

Oye, ¿quieres venir? — the sentence starts with Oye ("Hey"), but the ¿ opens only at the question.

The diaeresis (ü) appears in güe and güi to show the u must be pronounced: pingüino, vergüenza, bilingüe. Without the dots, the u would be silent, as in guitarra.

1. Forgetting the opening ¿ or ¡

A question needs both marks in Spanish. Writing Cómo estás? with no opening ¿ is a punctuation error.

2. Using the wrong accent direction

Spanish accents only ever slope up to the right (á é í ó ú). A grave accent (à) or circumflex (â) is always wrong.

3. Dropping a meaning-changing accent

sí/si, tú/tu and él/el are different words. In dictation and writing, the accent is not optional decoration — it carries the meaning.

4. Adding accents where none is needed

Short words that follow the default rule stay plain: fue, vio, dio and ti are written without an accent. Do not scatter accents onto words that are already stressed correctly.