Something that has been bugging people learning Spanish, and a good part of native Spanish speakers themselves, are stress and accents in words.


Á, ó, ú, what the hell are these for? They indicate where the stress of the word goes when speaking. Sure, a lot of people say that there is no proper stress in words in English, but I beg to differ. Sure, they may not be officially recognized as such, but there are a few examples of stress in English. Let’s take for example the word believe. Be-lieve. You don’t pronounce it be-lieve, do you? That’d be awkward.


So there you go, at least in my opinion you can find stress in words, but it’s not as relevant in English as it is in Spanish. Why? Because sometimes stress placed on the wrong syllable can change the meanings of words, sometimes completely twisting your words into something you never really meant to say.


Take for example the words mama and mamá. Mama is a really formal way of saying ‘woman’s breast’, while mamá means ‘mom’. Now, let’s say that you want to meet some gal's mom, but you accidentally place the stress on the wrong syllable. You don’t want to ask them to show you her tits, do you? Of course, if you are an obvious foreigner, and have a charming accent and speak broken Spanish in a cute way, you may even score with her, but that’s not really the point here.


Another common mistake I see often on the internets, is people claiming that they cannot speak "Ingles". I often point out that it's perfectly normal, as I personally don't know anyone who can speak groins. I once had someone reply to me that I was a "moron who clearly doesn't know any Spanish". Well, this person clearly didn't read this thing.

You see, ingle is the word in Spanish for groin, ingles being the plural form of the word. On the other hand, inglés is the word for English. Now, I know that a lot of keyboards won't allow writing words with these things (´), so it's perfectly understandable if they make this sort of mistake, but I still point it out in a non serious way for shits and giggles.



So yeah, there are tons of words that have different meanings depending of where their stress is, and that’s what accents are for, to know exactly which word you’re referring to.




So words are classified into five groups depending on which syllable is stressed. The most common ones are:



AGUDAS/ACUTE: The stress fall on the last syllable. The written accent is placed only if the word ends in n, s, or a vowel.

Examples: camión (bus), atrás (behind), tocar (to touch)


You see? The last one does not end in n, s, or a vocal, so it is not stressed. However, how do we know if the stress doesn’t fall on the previous to last syllable? We take a look at the next word group…




GRAVES: The stress falls on the previous to last syllable. The written accent is placed only if the word does not end in n, s, or a vowel:

Examples: árbol (tree), cráter (crater), culo (ass).


So for example. You know the word ‘algo’ (something), but you don’t know where the stress goes. Knowing the rules to the previous two groups of words, you can decipher it by yourself. It ends in a vowel, so it were an acute word, and the stress fell on the last syllable, it would have a ´ above the o. So it’s definitely NOT an acute word. However, if it were a grave word, it makes sense that there is no ´ above the e. So there you go, it is a grave word. Simple, huh? Well, the last ‘major’ group is even more ridiculously simple.




ESDRÚJULAS/SOBREESDRÚJULAS: The stress falls on the third to last syllable. The written accent is always placed. As for sobreesdrújulas, the stress falls on the fourth to last syllable, or further back. The accent is always written.

Examples? Esdrújula. Brújula (compass), sílaba (syllable), etc.


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There you go. The good news is that there are nearly no exceptions to these rules. The only ones that I know of happen when making a question. For example, '¿Cuándo vamos a comer?'. If you analyse it, cuando is a grave word and shouldn't bear a writen accent. However, it is a rule to place it on the stressed syllable of the word that sort of 'formulates' the question.

Also, beware, cause it also happens with 'indirect' questions like "Quiero saber dónde estás" (I want to know where you are) there are no question marks and yet the accent is placed on the dónde, while the rules tell us that in ordinary circumstances no accent is written.

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Also, there is still the fifth group of words, the monosyllabic words. Supposedly, they are NEVER to bear a written accent, however, there are some to this, as seen in the words más, sí, etc. It all depends on the meaning you are giving to the word, as this only happens with words that have different meanings depending on the circumstances under which it's written.


UPDATE: I explore this issue a bit more in this other journal: [link]

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HIATUSES AND DIPHTHONGS / HIATOS Y DIPTONGOS

Thanks a ton ton to =rydi1689 for pretty much doing this section. Thanks!

Hiatuses

Hiatuses occur when you have two open vowels together, this makes the word break in syllables where these vowels are. It's also a hiatus when you have an open and a closed vowel together and the stressed syllable is the one containing these vowels. What you have to do is put the accent over the closed vowel to break the word in two parts again.

Example of "pure" hiatus: caer (to fall): ca-er (see? two open vowels together). In this example however, though the stress falls on the last syllable, the accent is not written because the word does not end in "n", "s" or a vowel.

Example: Comía (ate): Co-mí-a. If the word is left untouched, both vowels would join in one syllable formina the word "co-mia", and since the stress would either fall on the last syllable and the "a" would bear an accent (co-miá), or the accent would fall on the first syllable and would remain as it is (co-mia). However, none of these mean anything! So this is why we have to place an accent on the "i" to divide the word and form the past tense of the verb "to eat".


So as you can see, when the stressed syllable contains two vowels in hiatus you place accents or not depending on the general rules.



Diphthongs


Diphthongs occur when you have either a closed vowel and an open one inn the same syllable, or two closed vowels in the same one. For example, aire, reina, nieve, ciudad. If they are composed by a closed vowel and an open one the open one will be the stressed one. If the accent goes on the closed one it becomes a hiatus and they get separated.

When having two closed vowels the last vowel has the accent if required.

Example: cuí-de-se. ((you) take care) (it's an esdrújula, therefore we need the accent)

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So yeah, I hope this helps somebody out there. Cheers.

And again, a big thank you to !