Part 2: Spanish tildes & word stress
- Julia Naranja
- May 13, 2020
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 23, 2024
Spanish tildes (accent marks) and things to consider...
The tilde indicates which vowel carries the spoken stress within the word when it does not follow the usual word stress rule #1 and #2 (below). It also distinguishes word meaning from words that otherwise look or sound the same.
In Spanish, word stress follows 3 general rules:
#3 all exceptions to the rules have a tilde on the stressed syllable
Let's take a closer look at word stress rule #1:
📌 hablo vs. habló
hablo (I speak) vs. habló (he/she/you (formal) spoke)
yo form present tense vs. él/ella/usted form preterite tense
Hablo español. (I speak Spanish.) --> ha-blo
Ryan me habló por teléfono ayer. (Ryan spoke to me over the phone yesterday.) --> ha-bló
📌 papá vs. papa
papá (dad) vs. papa (potato; pope)
A mi papá le gusta montar en monociclo. (My dad likes to ride unicycles.) --> pa-pá
El papa visitará la catedral de Santiago de Compostela durante el Año Santo (2021). (The pope will visit Santiago de Compostela Cathedral during the Holy Year (2021). --> pa-pa
Homonyms
Some words get tildes just to distinguish them from other homonyms (words that are pronounced the same, but different in meaning).
el (the) >> él (he)
de (of) >> dé (give (usted command)) --> from dar
si (if) >> sí (yes)
tu (your) >> tú (you (familiar))
mi (my) >> mí (me)
se (himself, herself, yourself, themselves) >> sé (I know)
mas (but) >> más (more)
te (you, yourself) >> el té (tea)
como (as, like) >> ¿cómo? (how?)
que (which, that, who) >> ¿qué? (what?)
cuando (when) >> ¿cuándo? (when?)
donde (where) >> ¿dónde? (where?)
porque (because) >> ¿por qué? (why?)
Diphthongs: two weak vowels (i, u) or a strong vowel (a, e, o) and a weak vowel together form a diphthong and are normally pronounced as a single syllable.
An accent mark is needed when a diphthong is broken into two syllables:
frí-o // bio-lo-gí-a // Ma-rí-a // fo-to-gra-fí-a
but... far-ma-cia // su-cio // Ma-rio
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