Lesson Video (3:10)
Lesson PDF (5 pages)
Hola chic@s,
Espero que estén bien (I hope you’re all well.)
Accent marks aren’t random. They’re just stress.
This is one of those topics that makes Spanish feel harder than it is.
We’re continuing with the basics today.
Fundamental building blocks on your learning journey.
Vamos.
Accent Marks can be found over the five vocales (vowels).
á, é, í, ó + ú
The accent always goes from the bottom left to the top right corner.
These accent marks in Spanish are known in the singular as:
una tilde [🗣️ TEEL-deh]
Tildes are used to indicate stress in a word, in other words when to emphasise
part of a word.
e.j teléfono [🗣️ teh-LÉH-foh-noh]
e.j sábado [🗣️ SÁH-bah-doh]
You’ll also come to discover that tildes change the meanings of some words.
qué 👉 what / how
que 👉 that / which / who
There are two other accent marks in Spanish, visually different to tildes.
La Ñ [🗣️ eh-nyeh]
The little squiggle on the ‘N’ is also sometimes known as ‘una tilde’.
But, it’s commonly referred to as:
‘una virgulilla’ [🗣️ veer-goo-LEE-yah].
The other accent mark is ‘Ü’.
This is known as ‘diéresis’ and basically reminds you to pronounce the ‘U’ in the sequences ‘gue / gui’.
Normally in ‘gue / gui’ the u is silent.
e.j Guerra [🗣️ GEH-rra]
But with diéresis in güe / güi, the u is pronounced.
e.j Pingüino [🗣️ pin-GWEE-no]
That’s it for today.
I hope this helps in reducing confusion for you.
‘Tilde’.
It’s a good word to know.
Un abrazo,
Harrison
P.S - Keep using the Verb Lab to practice your conjugation. If you have any feedback for me, my inbox is always open 🙂
