Pronunciation and Accent Mark Practice

Pronunciation and Accent Mark Practice

Accent marks in Spanish are actually your friends. They help you pronounce words correctly. In English, this is often ambiguous. For example, record and present can be pronounced two ways depending on meaning -- I record a record in the studio or I present you with a present for your birthday.

Spanish has two rules to help you remember how to pronounce words.

Say the following verse outloud:

If the word ends in a vowel, n or s,

the second to the last syllable gets the stress.

If the word ends in a consonant, yes!

Then the last syllable gets the stress.

If pronunciation breaks these rules,

Add an accent mark, you fool.

When a word has an accent mark, it is telling you that it has broken one of the two rules and you need to adjust your pronunciation. Take a look at these examples.

Yo hablo.

Divided into syllables, this phrase would be: Yo ha blo. Since hablo ends in a vowel, the second to the last syllable would be the ha. This is where you would put the emphasis in your speech.

Hablo can also be pronounced by putting the stress on the last syllable, habló. This changes the meaning of the phrase from I speak to He spoke. Accent is very important. Putting it in the wrong place can change the meaning of a word drammatically.

Another example of a regular word: libertad --> li ber tad. The stress would be on the last syllable since the word ends in a consonant. The word follows the second rule.

Let's look at some words that have accents and see why they do.

estás--> es tás están--> es tán sábado-->sá ba do | música-->mú si ca

This word breaks the first rule so you need to add an accent mark to show that the stress is on the last syllable rather than the second to the last.

lápiz --> lá piz | césped-->cés ped

Some accent marks are used to distinguish one-syllable words. For example, el/él, si/sí, te/té. Each of these words have different meanings. The accent mark does not change the pronunciation of the word. In addition, question words always have an accent mark--qué (what), cómo (how)/que (that), como (like).