Accent/Tildes in Spanish
In English, we don't have accents on our vowels. We put the stress on a vowel, but don't write it when writing in English.
(Below is copied from https://www.fluentu.com/blog/spanish/spanish-accent-marks/)
1. Words ending in a vowel, n, or s.
For words that end in a vowel, the letter n, or the letter s, the stress is on the next to last syllable.
Examples:
todo (to-do) all/every
inteligente (in-te-li-gen-te) smart
el examen (e-xa-men) exam
joven (jo-ven) young
lunes (lu-nes) Monday
los calcetines (cal-ce-ti-nes) socks
2. Words ending in a consonant (not n, s)
For words that end in all other consonants (not n or s), the stress falls on the last syllable.
Examples:
comer (co-mer) to eat
la ciudad (ciu-dad) the city
el profesor (pro-fe-sor) the professor/teacher
el animal (a-ni-mal) the animal
Madrid (Ma-drid) Madrid
And that's it! Think you can remember those two rules?
(For those interested in Spanish syllable breaks, but not interested enough to learn all of the rules behind the splits just yet, you can use this handy tool to break any Spanish word into its correct syllables.)
When to Add Spanish Accent Marks
We add accent marks to Spanish words when the stress breaks either of those two rules.
Let's look at one example in detail first, the word from my vocabulary test: los exámenes. The word ends in an "s", so according to the first rule, the stress should fall on the next to last syllable: ex-am-en-es. But it doesn't.
Rather, the word keeps the same stress as its singular form, on what is now the third to last syllable, so we add an accent mark: exámenes (e-xa-me-nes). That's it!
Examples of words that break rule #1
Here are some examples of Spanish words with accent marks that break rule #1. You'll notice none of the stresses fall on the second to last syllable, as they normally would.
la canción (can-cion) song
también (tam-bien) also
los crímenes (cri-me-nes) crimes
jamás (ja-mas) never
inglés (in-gles) English
rápido (ra-pi-do) fast
está (es-ta) is, third person singular of the verb estar – to be
Examples of words that break rule #2
And here are examples of words that break the second rule. These are words that end in a consonant (not "n" or "s"), but whose accent does not fall on the final syllable.
el árbol (ar-bol) tree
la cárcel (car-cel) jail/prison
el césped (ces-ped) grass
débil (de-bil) weak
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