How to Add Accents to Spanish Words
While written accents on Spanish words may seem confusing, they’re actually governed by two simple rules and very few exceptions. In order to be sure of where to put the written accents, you must know how to pronounce the word in question properly. Picking out the sounds for a given word--or rendering the sounds in letters--is easy, because in the Spanish language, each letter makes only one or, in very rare occasions, two sounds. The words sound almost exactly as they look.
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Instructions
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Write the word out, without accent marks.
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Say the word several times. If you’re not sure whether your pronunciation--including syllable stress--is correct or not, ask a friend, classmate, teacher or native speaker to help you.
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Pay close attention to your own pronunciation and identify which syllable--there is always only one--is stressed. If the word ends in a vowel, “n” or “s,” and is stressed on the second-to-last syllable, there is no need to use an accent mark to indicate the stressed syllable. If the word ends in any consonant besides “n” or “s” and is stressed on the last syllable, there is no need to use an accent mark. If the word doesn’t follow either of these rules, however, you should place an accent mark over the vowel in the accented syllable.
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Tips & Warnings
Accents are sometimes used to denote queries; if you’re making a query, place an accent on the stressed syllable of the query word (e.g. where, how, which, what, who) even though it follows the rules explained above.
A few one-syllable words are written both with and without accent marks; the presence of the accent mark denotes a stronger meaning. For example, “si” means if, whereas “sí” means yes. “Mas” means but, whereas “más” means more or most.
