Spanish Accent Rules: Agudas, Llanas and Esdrújulas

Every Spanish word has one stressed syllable. The written accent (the tilde) appears only when that stress is not where the default rule puts it:

• Tomo un café. - I'll have a coffee. (stress on the last syllable: written)
• Mi casa es pequeña. - My house is small. (the default: nothing written)

Spanish accent rules at a glance

Count the syllables from the end of the word. The class decides whether the stressed vowel wears an accent:

• cafécoffee, an aguda
• árboltree, a llana
• músicamusic, an esdrújula

The accent is never decoration and never optional, capitals included: ÁRBOL on a sign, not ARBOL.

The vowel, n or s test

Most Spanish words end in a vowel, n or s, and most of those are stressed on the second-to-last syllable. That default is never written. Agudas and llanas are mirror images of each other:

An aguda is stressed where you would least expect it, so it is written when it ends like a default word. A llana is the default, so it is written only when it ends in some other letter:

• Es una canción muy fácil. - It's a very easy song. (aguda in n, llana in l: both written)
• No es verdad. - It isn't true. (aguda in d: nothing written)
• Mi examen es el lunes. - My exam is on Monday. (llanas in n and s: nothing written)

Esdrújulas: always accented

The default stress never reaches further back than the second-to-last syllable. So any word stressed on the third-to-last breaks the pattern and always carries an accent, with no test to run:

• El último tren es muy rápido. - The last train is very fast.
• Mi médico no contesta al teléfono. - My doctor isn't answering the phone.

Two vowels, two syllables: día and país

The vowels i and u are weak; a, e and o are strong. A weak vowel beside a strong one normally glides into a single syllable, and needs no accent:

• Estudio bien. - I study well. (es-TU-dio: the io is one syllable)

When the stress falls on the weak vowel instead, the pair splits into two syllables, and Spanish always writes the accent on the weak vowel, whatever the vowel, n or s test says:

• díaday
• paíscountry
• ríoriver

Día shows the override: it is a llana ending in a vowel, so the test says no accent, and the split says yes.

Verbs that keep the stress on i or u

Some verbs put the stress on the weak vowel in the present, so the accent appears in four of the six forms (envío, envías, envía, envían; but enviamos, enviáis). Compare estudiar, which keeps the diphthong:

• Te envío la foto. - I'm sending you the photo.
• La historia continúa. - The story goes on.

One-syllable words: no accent

A word with one syllable has no other syllable to compete with, so it is written bare:

• Fue un día largo. - It was a long day.
• Esto es para ti. - This is for you.

The one exception is the diacritic accent, which tells look-alike words apart by meaning: él (he) against el (the), tú (you) against tu (your). It has its own page.

Plurals and pronouns move the accent

The stressed syllable stays put when a word grows, but its place from the end changes, so the accent can come or go:

Pronouns joined to a command push the stress further from the end, so the accent arrives:

Three nouns move their stress in the plural and break the pattern: carácter becomes caracteres, régimen becomes regímenes, espécimen becomes especímenes.

• Tiene muy buen carácter. - He/she has a very good nature.

Mistakes English speakers make

What to do next

1. Say the word, find the beat, name the class, then run the vowel, n or s test.
2. Do the sort and the spot-the-error below.
3. Then the diacritic accent: tú vs tu, the accent that marks meaning.