Lesson 0 - Stress, Accents, and Spelling

The rules for placing verbal stress on Spanish words, and for understanding accents and spelling

Stress on final syllable

Words that end in a consonant other than “n” or “s”

Stress on penultimate syllable

Words that end with a vowel, “n”, or “s”

Accents move stress when…

They are on what would be an unstressed syllable

Accents that do not affect pronunciation…

Indicate a non-accented counterpart with a different meaning or an interrogative.

z to c occurs

1. To form the plural in nouns an adjectives that end with “z”

2. When a “z” followed by an “a” or “o” would be followed by “e” or “i”

Other spelling changes occur…

To preserve a required sound, particularly with reference to verb conjugations:

The letters “c” and “g” change pronunciation depending on whether or not they are followed by “e” or “i”, so “c” might be replaced with a “qu” in order to maintain a hard “k” sound, and “g” might be replaced with a “gu” to maintain the hard “g” sound.