Pronunciation Matters
Writing Accents Matters, Too!
Alphabet in Spanish
Listen to my pronunciation by clicking below.
The natural stress for Spanish words is as follows:
- The natural stress is on the second to the last syllable when a word ends with consonants other than n or s (in other words, do not end with an s, n, a, e, i, o, or u)
- tomates (tomatoes), examen (exam), triste (sad), volumen (volume)
- The natural stress is on the last syllable when a word ends with any consonant other than n or s (in other words, any words that end anything but s, n, a, e, i, o, or u)
- mujer (woman), salud (health), doctor (doctor), papel (paper)
If the stress is on another letter other than following these rules, it is marked with an accent mark.
Accents!
It is important to have accents on Spanish words, particularly names (even when writing in English sentences, use Spanish accents for names).
Notice the handy keyboard shortcuts here for PC and Mac for accent marks [in Microsoft Word only – not in search engine typing].
***In a pinch? Forgot the shortcuts? Don’t just say, “Oh well!”
Another option is to type the person’s name in Spanish in Google, for example, type “Tomas” – and it will be corrected automatically to “Tomás.” Then you can copy and paste either the full name or the letter “a” with the accent.
Biblespanish.com 