The Use of Spanish Accent Marks

Spanish accent marks are used to indicate word stress. They do not affect the quality of the vowel. They are also used to differentiate words which are otherwise identical. Spanish words which end in a vowel and with n and s have penultimate stress. Words that end with a consonant (not n and s) have ultimate stress. Most Spanish words follows these rules.

The following words have penultimate stress:

uno (one)
siete (seven)
mesa (table)
semana (weak)
trenes (trains)

The following words have ultimate stress:

arroz (rice)
ciudad (city)

edad (age)
sabor (flavour)
vocal (vowel)

With words that do not follow the rules for Spanish stress, accent marks are used to indicate the stressed syllable. Here is a list of such words:

aquí (here)
jamón (ham)
sílaba (syllable)
situación (situation)
teléfono (telephone)

Words are also distinguished with the use of accent marks. Here are examples

el/él (the/he)
mas/más (but/more)
si/sí (if/yes)
tu/tú (your/you)

Unlike in other languages, Spanish accent marks do not affect vowel quality. They are used to indicate stress. In certain cases, they are used to distinguish words which are pronounced the same but have different meanings.