What are the rules as to Spanish pronunciation?

Question

I know an accent means to stress that syllable, but in a 4 syllable word, for example, without an accent, where should the stress go?

Answer 1

I got this from the SD Reference section.

1. Aguda - Words that end in a consonant other than 'n' or 's' should be stressed on the last syllable. About 1/3 of all Spanish words are agudas, including all infinitives.

   azul, avestruz, matador, hablar

2. Grave (Llana) - Words that end in a vowel, 'n', or 's' should be stressed on the penultimate (second to last) syllable. Over half of all Spanish words are graves.

   mono, ave, cantan, computadoras

3. Esdrújula - Words whose accent falls on the third to last syllable. These always have a tilde.

   rápido, pájaro, América, clásico

4. Sobresdrújula - Words whose accent falls on the fourth, fifth, sixth, etc. to last syllable. The only words with this stress are verbs with one or three pronouns attached to them. These words always have a tilde.

   míramelo, préstaselo, enséñenoslo, devuélvemelo

Wow! For a moment I thought you had all this stuff in your head,but then I saw your reference link. I've only been on this site a few days and already I love it. - canicos, Jun 13, 2010

Answer 2

The stress always falls on the last syllable except when the word ends in a vowel or an n or an s then it falls on the next to the last or any other syllable which has an accent mark. Sin excepción. This is one of the reasons why Spanish is so much easier to pronounce than English. Spanish is always pronounced the same way.