1-Acute Accent: á, é, í, ó, ú

Tilde ~ Acento agudo

The Spanish acute accent* (á, é, í, ó, ú) serves two purposes:
1. Word stress
The acute accent indicates that the normal rules of word stress are being overridden.
Here are the normal rules with examples of words that follow them as well as words that
need accents because they break the rules.
Exceptions
a) Words that end in a consonant other than N and S have calor árbol
stress on the last syllable. estoy lápiz
salud
abril
b) Words that end in a vowel, S, or N have stress on the agosto sábado
penultimate syllable. nosotros jesús
señora perdón
c) Most two-vowel combinations diphthong unless one of cuarto mediodía
them has an accent. diciembre miércoles
junio frío
Note: When object pronouns are attached to verbs, the acute accent is used to maintain
correct word stress.
2. Distinction
Acute accents also distinguish between otherwise identical words:
aun even, adverb vs aún still adverb
including
de of, about preposition dé he from dar (subjunctive)
gave
el the definite article él he subject pronoun
mas but conjunction más more quantity
mi my possessive mí me pronoun
adjective
o or conjunction ó or (when used with numbers: 2 ó
3)
se oneself reflexive pronoun sé I know from saber
be from ser (imperative)
si if conjunction sí yes adverb
oneself pronoun
te you, yourself pronoun té tea noun
tu your possessive tú you subject pronoun
adjective
2a. Interrrogation
In addition to the above are all interrogative words. When they are used in a question,
they have an accent. When used to answer a question or make a statement, they don't.
Compare the following:
– ¿Dónde estás? – Where are you?
– Estoy donde quiero estar. – I'm where I want to be.

– ¿Cuándo vas a hacerlo? – When are you going to do it?

– Cuando tenga tiempo. – When I have time.
Spanish interrogatives
como how cómo how?
cual which cuál which?
cuando when cuándo when?
cuanto how much/many cuánto how much/many?
donde where dónde where?
que what qué what?
quien who quién who?
Notes
* The acute accent is rarely called acento agudo in Spanish; it’s more commonly known
as tilde,** acento ortográfico, or simply acento.
** Not to be confused with the tilde over the letter n (ñ), which is something else entirely.

2-Tilde: ñ
Spanish double letter
The ~ accent, called a tilde, on the Spanish letter Ñ indicates that the word used to be
spelled with two Ns but now the tilde stands in for the second one. Ñ is pronounced like
the ni in onion.
It’s very important to include the tilde when writing or typing, because N and Ñ are two
different letters. There are words that mean different things depending on whether the
word is spelled and pronounced with N or Ñ. Also, Ñ has its own section of the dictionary
which comes after the entire N section.
Por ejemplo… ñ uña fingernail baño bathroom pañuelo handkerchief

PRONUNCIATION

3-Dieresis: ü
In Spanish, when the letter G precedes a U plus a hard vowel, the U and the vowel are
both pronounced. In order to obtain this W sound in front of a soft vowel, the Ü comes
into play.