The ultimate guide to Spanish accent marks & how to type them

Not sure how to take on the Spanish accent marks? This handy guide will cover everything you need to get started.

One of the best parts of picking up a new language is learning all about its fun and exciting linguistic features. Okay, fine — maybe that’s just the case for language geeks like me, but hear me out! One of the most unique features of Spanish is its rich set of rules and guidelines that help take the guesswork out of spelling and pronunciation.

For example, have you noticed that the pronunciation of some English words has no basis in reality? Words like caramel, data, and apricot have hotly debated pronunciations, and English grammar or spelling rules offer no solution for these disputes. Fortunately, Spanish accent mark rules will ensure that you always know how a word is pronounced, as long as you can read it! How awesome is that?

Of course, if you’re a native English speaker, then these marks aren’t totally novel to you — words like résumé, risqué, and café are commonly used in English and include an accent mark. However, these words come from French — not Spanish — and French has totally different accent mark rules.

In this article, we’ll dive into everything you need to know about accent marks in Spanish, from the different types of marks, to what they mean and how to use them. We’ll even cover how to separate any Spanish word into syllables so you can identify which words need an accent mark!

Ready to tackle them? ¡Ya estás!

Letters with Spanish accent marks

Before we get started with all the rules and exceptions, let’s cover the bare basics. If you’re still studying elementary Spanish, you may wonder which Spanish letters have an accent mark. Fortunately, only the five Spanish vowels can have an accent mark:

• á
• é
• í
• ó
• ú

Although the letter y is also considered a vowel by some, it cannot have an accent mark in Spanish.

When do Spanish vowels have an accent mark?

Spanish vowels have an accent mark when certain rules are met. Accent marks, or a lack thereof, help us identify where the stressed syllable is. Unlike other languages, Spanish doesn’t use accent marks to change the sound of a vowel. That means that, instead of memorizing countless vocabulary words, you just have to learn a few rules, and you’ll be able to figure out when a vowel needs an accent mark!

But before we get started with accent mark rules, we need to cover the stress rules.

Spanish stress rules

The overwhelming majority of cases involving an accent mark in Spanish — which, by the way, is called tilde (teel-deh) in Spanish — is related to the stress of a word. Luckily, this won’t be a new concept for you if you’re an English speaker. Every word in English has a stressed syllable, although there’s no way to know which is the stressed syllable just by looking at a word, so you have to learn the pronunciation of each word individually.

Luckily, Spanish has devised a nifty set of pronunciation rules that will let you know exactly how each word is pronounced just by looking at it. No more mispronouncing a new word you learned from a book!

There are four types of words in Spanish:

The first step to knowing whether a word requires an accent mark is being able to identify what type of word you’re dealing with. If you’re trying to write a word from memory, then all you need to do is break the word down into syllables and figure out where the emphasis is. And if you’re reading a word, you’ll know exactly where the emphasis is based on whether it has an accent mark!

Breaking down words into syllables in Spanish

You won’t be able to follow any of the accent mark rules if you’re uncomfortable breaking down words into syllables. Although this can seem a little complicated at first, this is one of those areas that will improve tremendously with time.

Most syllables combine a vowel sound (can be one or more vowels) and a consonant sound (can be one or more consonants). Every word is made up of at least one syllable. Here are all the rules you should follow when breaking down words into syllables:

• Each syllable must have at least one vowel
• Two or more consonants can only be in the same syllable if there are any Spanish words that start with that same group of consonants, in that same order
• All consonants at the end of a word go in the same syllable as the vowel immediately preceding them
• A single consonant between two vowels will go with the vowel after the consonant
• The following pairs of consonants may not be separated: pr, br, dr, cr, fr, gr, kr, tr, fl, pl, gl, kl, cl, bl, ch, and ll
• In general, if three consonants are between two vowels, then the first two consonants will go with the preceding vowel and the following consonant will go with the following vowel
• If four consonants are between four vowels, then the first two will go with the preceding vowel and the second two will go with the following vowel
• If two open vowels are next to each other (a, e, o) they form a hiatus and go in separate syllables
• If an open vowel (a, e, o) is next to a closed vowel (i, u) or vice-versa, they form a diphthong and go in the same syllable
• If an open vowel with an accent mark is next to a closed vowel, then they go in different syllables
• Triphthongs (three vowels together) should always go in the same syllable

If that felt like a lot of rules, you’re not alone! While seeing such a long list of rules to take note of can seem overwhelming at first, remember that word syllabication is all about rhythm, and the best way to pick up the rhythm of words is through constant exposure! And if you need some extra help while you get there, you can try this handy syllable separator!

Separating Spanish words into syllables video

If you felt like those were too many rules to comfortably follow along by text, do not worry. The following video is an excellent resource for you if you’re still trying to get a hang of how the Spanish syllables work.

Improve your Spanish Accent - Dividing Words into Syllables

Examples of Spanish words separated into syllables

As always, practice makes perfect, so work on separating as many words as you can into syllables. Here are some examples to help you get started.

Accent mark rules

The accent mark rules are quite simple now that you know how to break down words into syllables. Once you’ve separated a word into syllables, you just need to identify where the stress is so you can classify it into one of the four types of words we mentioned above (aguda, grave, esdrújula, sobresdrújula).

Here are the rules you should follow:

In other words:

• Aguda words that end in a vowel, “n” or “s” have an accent mark in the last syllable.
• Grave words that do not end in a vowel, “n” or “s” have an accent mark in the second-to-last syllable.
• Both esdrújula and sobresdrújula words always have an accent mark in the stressed syllable, regardless of the letter it ends in.

Exceptions to rules

If you’ve been taking Spanish classes for any amount of time, then you already know that for every Spanish grammar rule, there’s at least one exception. And that’s the only golden rule in Spanish! So, here are some situations that break the Spanish accent mark rules we discussed above.

Question words

If you know about the Spanish question words, then you probably already saw this one coming. Since Spanish questions generally don’t follow a different structure than regular statements, Spanish goes the extra mile to ensure its questions are abundantly clear. That’s why you see the use of the upside-down question mark, as well as an accent mark over question words.

In Spanish, question words can also be other types of words, like relative pronouns. In order to avoid confusion, these words have an accent mark when they’re being used as question words, and don’t have one when they’re being used as relative pronouns. Here are some examples:

Another thing to keep in mind is that interrogative words aren’t used in questions all the time. Indeed, you can allude to a question even if you’re only making a statement. These are known as embedded questions, and the question words used to make them also have an accent mark. Here are some examples to help you understand what we mean.

Homonyms

Spanish also uses accent marks over vowels to differentiate homonyms. This is especially true for short words that may cause a misunderstanding, so adding an accent mark is an easy way to differentiate between the two meanings. This type of accent mark is known as the tilde diacrítica, and it doesn’t change the pronunciation of the word.

Unlike the rules mentioned above, no rule will tell you when a homonym should have an accent — you simply have to memorize the ones that do. Luckily, there aren’t that many cases.

Here are some of the most common Spanish homonyms that have an accent mark.

Demonstrative pronouns

Demonstrative pronouns are quite controversial in the Spanish-speaking world. Their use is quite simple: they help us refer to things based on their relation to us or something or someone else. In Spanish, these are pronouns like este, ese, and estos, and this, these, and those in English.

However, what’s still hotly debated these days is whether these pronouns need to have an accent mark. Previously, the rule was for demonstrative pronouns to go with an accent mark whenever they represent a specific noun. For example, you would say “esta silla” in the first instance, followed by “ésta” (no mention of silla) in all subsequent instances.

Fortunately, you do not need to worry about this too much as the RAE recommends never using an accent mark with demonstrative pronouns. They still made a provision allowing people to use them in the case of ambiguity, so you might still run into them in the wild. However, if you’re just getting started, it’s probably best to follow RAE’s advice and never use them at all.

Other Spanish auxiliary marks

By this point, you might be thinking, “but wait, aren’t you forgetting about the accent marks over the n and the u?” While that’s a great observation, Spanish doesn’t consider the ˜ above the ñ or the ¨ above the u to be an accent mark. These are entirely different marks, but they’re still worth mentioning in the context of Spanish marks.

The tilde in Ñ

Perhaps confusingly, the sign above the letter Ñ is called a tilde in English, but a virguilla (veer-gee-yah) in Spanish. As you’ll recall, a tilde in Spanish is the name of the acute accent mark we’ve discussed in this article.

So, when does the letter N go with a tilde in Spanish? In short, never. That’s because Spanish considers N and Ñ to be completely different letters. So, don’t think of the letter Ñ as just an N with a squiggly line on top. Simply learn its pronunciation like you would any other letter, and make sure to keep the letter ñ completely separate from the letter n! Mixing them up could result in you saying “Tengo 27 anos” (I have 27 anuses) instead of “Tengo 27 años” (I am 27 years old)!

The diacritic diaeresis in ü

If you speak German or French, you’re probably already familiar with these two little dots known as la diéresis (la dee-eh-reh-sees), or diacritic diaeresis (they have other names in other languages, but let’s focus on Spanish for now!).

Unlike the accent mark, the diacritic diaeresis does change the pronunciation of a letter as it overrides another pronunciation rule. As you’ll recall, the u in words with -gue and -gui is completely silent, such as in águila (ah-gee-lah) and Guevara (geh-vah-rah). However, when the diacritic diaeresis is added to the u, it overrides the rule so that the u is pronounced, such as in pingüino (peen-goo-e-noh) and bilingüe (bee-leen-goo-eh). The sound of the u doesn’t change at all, a ü sounds exactly like a u in any other situation.

How to type Spanish accent marks

If you’ve never spoken a language that routinely uses accent marks before, then you might be wondering how to type them. Luckily, it’s not as difficult as it may sound, although there are a few different ways to type them depending on your device.

Of course, you can also just copy and paste them if you’re in a rush or are having trouble getting your keyword to work. You can use the following list:

• á
• é
• í
• ó
• ú

If you’re committed to learning Spanish, though, you will need to find an easy and reliable way to type accent marks on your computer, phone, or tablet.

Keyboard

Did you know laptops in Spain and Latin America come with a special Spanish keyword that includes special characters like the accent mark and the Ñ? However, you don’t need to go out and buy a Spanish keyboard or a new laptop just because you don’t see an accent mark on your keyboard. Here’s how to type them on an English keyboard:

Mac

Mac computers have keyboard shortcuts that can help you type all kinds of special characters and symbols — including the Spanish accent mark. To type the Spanish accent mark on a Mac, simply press option + e followed by the vowel you want the accent mark over.

You can release the keys after pressing option + e and you’ll see the accent mark (´) hovering over a blank space. At that point, just press the key for the vowel you want and you’ll get a Spanish vowel with an accent mark!

PS. You can use option + n to get the ˜ for ñ and option + u to get the ¨ for ü!

PC

To type a Spanish accent on a PC, all you need to do is press Ctrl + ‘ (apostrophe) followed by the vowel you want to accentuate. You can also press Ctrl + Shift + ~ to get the ˜ for ñ and Ctrl + Shift + : to get the ¨ for ü.

Phone/tablet

The good thing about using a smartphone or a tablet is that there aren’t any physical limitations when it comes to the keyboard. So, if you’re fully ready to take the plunge and immerse yourself in a Spanish-speaking environment, go ahead and set your keyboard to Spanish! Just go to your device’s keyboard settings and set the language to Spanish. This won’t change your entire phone’s language to Spanish — only your keyboard’s.

iOS devices

If you’re not ready to replace your Spanish keyboard with an English one yet, you can simply tap and hold any vowel on your iPhone or iPad and it will show you a list of all the available accent marks for that particular vowel. Once you see the list of available vowels, simply tap the á icon and you’ll get your accented vowel!

Android devices

You can tap and hold a vowel on your Android device to see all the available accents for that particular vowel. So, if you’re trying to type á on your Android device, simply tap and hold the a until the list of available accent marks appears. Then, just tap on the á, and voilà!

FAQs

What is the difference between an accent and an accent mark in Spanish?

Every word in Spanish has an accent, but not all of them have an accent mark. In other words, the accent mark simply helps us find which syllable is the stressed syllable, and all words have a stressed syllable (except for some monosyllabic words). It’s common to use the terms “accent” and “accent mark” interchangeably, so you’ll often hear people ask if a certain word goes “con o sin acento” (with or without an accent).

Can I ignore Spanish accent marks?

¡No! Accent marks are extremely important and the absence of one can completely change the meaning of a word. For example, papa means potato but papá means father. See how the lack of an accent mark could quickly turn the meaning of your words upside down?

Do accent marks change the meaning of Spanish words?

Yes! A single accent mark can completely change the meaning of a word in Spanish. In fact, accent marks are sometimes used specifically to change the meaning of words. This happens with homonyms like él and el, té and te, mi and mí, and more.

How many accent marks are there in Spanish?

There is only one type of accent mark that’s used in Spanish: the acute accent (´). While other Romance languages like French use multiple types of accents, Spanish only uses one type of accent on all occasions.

Unlock the world of Spanish writing with accents

Tackling the accents is just the first step to becoming a prolific writer in Spanish. Once you realize that the world of accent marks is nothing to be afraid of, you’ll see that writing in Spanish is much easier than you’d think. You’ll soon be able to write letters, emails, text messages, short stories, and much more in Spanish!

If you thought this guide was helpful, make sure to take a look at our Spanish blog. We regularly publish helpful and approachable guides on various Spanish grammar and vocabulary topics.