The Spanish Diacritic Accent
Most Spanish accents mark stress. The tilde diacrítica does not. It sits on one-syllable words that could not be stressed anywhere else, and it carries no sound at all. Its single job is to separate two words that look and sound identical. Tú and tu are pronounced the same; only the accent tells you that one means you and the other means your. This page is about that accent alone. For the general rules of where stress falls, and which words take an accent because of it, see the companion page on accent rules.
The homophone pairs
Each pair below sounds identical. The accent marks one member; context tells you which you need. Get these nine right and you have most of written Spanish's diacritics.
| Accented | Meaning | Bare | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| tú | you (subject) | tu | your |
| él | he | el | the (masculine) |
| mí | me (after a preposition) | mi | my |
| sí | yes; himself, herself | si | if |
| sé | I know; be! (command) | se | reflexive pronoun |
| té | tea | te | you (object pronoun) |
| más | more | mas | but (literary, = pero) |
| dé | give (subjunctive of dar) | de | of, from |
| aún | still, yet (= todavía) | aun | even (= incluso) |
A few in use:
- Tú tienes tu libro. (You have your book.) - subject then possessive.
- Él abre el coche. (He opens the car.) - pronoun then article.
- Este regalo es para mí, no para mi hermano. (This present is for me, not for my brother.)
- Sí, sí puedo, si me dejas. (Yes, I can indeed, if you let me.)
- Sé que se lava las manos. (I know he washes his hands.)
- Quiero más café, mas no tengo tiempo. (I want more coffee, but I have no time.) - mas without an accent is a bookish pero; you will read it more than you will say it.
- Espero que me lo dé hoy. (I hope he gives it to me today.)
- Aún no ha venido; aun así, esperamos. (He still has not come; even so, we wait.)
The interrogative accent
The second branch of the diacritic accent marks the question words. Qué, cómo, cuándo, dónde, quién, cuánto, cuál and por qué take an accent whenever they carry a questioning or exclamatory force. Stripped of the accent, the same words become relatives or conjunctions.
| Accented (asking) | Bare (relative / conjunction) | Meaning shift |
|---|---|---|
| qué | que | what vs that / which |
| cómo | como | how vs as / like |
| cuándo | cuando | when? vs when (it does) |
| dónde | donde | where? vs where (it is) |
| quién | quien | who? vs the one who |
| cuánto | cuanto | how much? vs as much as |
| cuál | cual | which? vs the which |
| por qué | porque | why? vs because |
The accent appears in three places, not one:
- Direct questions: ¿Qué quieres? (What do you want?), ¿Dónde vives? (Where do you live?)
- Exclamations: ¡Qué bien! (How great!), ¡Cuánto has crecido! (How you have grown!)
- Indirect questions, where there is no question mark at all: No sé qué hacer. (I don't know what to do.) Dime cuándo llegas. (Tell me when you arrive.) Me pregunto por qué se fue. (I wonder why he left.)
That third case is the one exams love. The question has been swallowed inside a longer sentence, the punctuation has vanished, and the accent is the only surviving clue that a question is still being asked.
The embedded question test
When you cannot tell whether a word is a question word or a relative, try to rephrase the clause as a direct question. If it works, the word is interrogative and takes the accent.
- No sé dónde está. -> hidden question ¿Dónde está? So: dónde, accented.
- La casa donde vivo es vieja. (The house where I live is old.) -> no hidden question; donde simply points back to la casa. So: donde, bare.
- Pregunta quién viene. -> hidden ¿Quién viene? So: quién, accented.
- El chico que viene es mi primo. (The boy who is coming is my cousin.) -> que links to el chico; no question. So: que, bare.
If the word introduces information you already have rather than information you are seeking, it is a relative, and the accent comes off.
Special cases
sólo. Since the 2010 RAE reform, the adverb solo (meaning solamente, only) no longer needs an accent, and solo now covers both only and alone. Many careful writers still add it out of habit, and you will not be penalised, but the modern recommendation is to write solo everywhere.
The four porques. These trip up even natives. Por qué (two words, accent) asks why: ¿Por qué lloras?. Porque (one word, no accent) answers, meaning because: Lloro porque estoy triste.. Porqué (one word, accent) is a noun meaning the reason, used with an article: No entiendo el porqué de su enfado.. Por que (two words, no accent) is the rare por plus relative que: La razón por que luchamos. In everyday writing you need the first two constantly and the last two almost never.
o vs ó. Spanish used to accent the conjunction o between figures, to stop 3 o 4 looking like 304. Modern fonts made that pointless, so the accent is gone: write 3 o 4, never 3 ó 4.
Common mistakes English speakers make
Dropping the accent in indirect questions: No sé que hacer is wrong; it must be qué. Writing tu for the subject tú, or el for the pronoun él. Confusing mí and mi after a preposition: it is para mí, with the accent. Muddling por qué and porque. And over-accenting relatives: el libro qué leo is wrong, because que here just means that.
See also
- Spanish accent rules - the agudas, llanas and esdrújulas system that governs every other accent, the one this page deliberately sets aside.
- Spanish question words - each interrogative in full, with the qué versus cuál split and question word order.
- The Spanish grammar cheatsheet keeps the homophone pairs on one card.