Pronunciation question - accent mark

Question

Can someone remind me of the rule for where the accent falls-- Isn't it something like, if it ends in "ez", as in the names Sanchez, Baez, Godinez, etc. that the accent falls on the next to the last syllable? Is this correct? And something similar if the word ends in "en"? Am talking about spoken Spanish, not written punctuation where the trend is to eliminate some of these accent marks.

Answer 1

If a word ends in N, S or a vowel then the stress is on the penultimate syllable.

If a word ends in a consonant then the stress is on the last syllable.

Yes, that is the rule I was looking for, and had it confused with these particular names that seemed to follow that "penultimate syllable" rule. My memory is refreshed now. Thanks! - mggabriel, Dec 29, 2009

Answer 2

qfreed said

If the word ended in a consonant (not n or s) then the stress would be on the last syllable.

That´s what I said in the second sentence of my post. The first sentence had already dealt with the n or s. Why do you state, no, it is not.

Look at the time stamps, Eddy. I'll bet Quentin was replying directly to the original question. - samdie, Dec 30, 2009

Answer 3

No, it is not. If the word ended in a consonant (not n or s) then the stress would be on the last syllable. This is termed aguda. Your words ending en z would be aguda unless there is an accent mark in the name.

The accent marks that you mention eliminating in written Spanish (I assume that you are talking about diacritacal accent marks) have no effect on spoken Spanish as the words are pronounced the same with or without the accent mark (e.g. el, él, esta, ésta)

Here is a link to our Reference article on the simple, rules for placing stress and placing accent marks to show stress.

tildes

So I think that in these names ending in Z, for example, they probably originally had an accent mark (diacritical), but they no longer do (or often are not written that way). So one would just need to know that. - mggabriel, Dec 29, 2009

Yes, Sánchez usually has an accent mark to place the stress on the a rather than the e for aguda words, but there is no way to know that just looking at the word Sanchez. - 0074b507, Dec 29, 2009