Why are accents so important in learning to speak a language.

Question

You would think spelling would be enough without the accents to score the waor correct in writing lessons.

Answer 1

Consider this:

doméstico = domestic

domestico = I domesticate

domesticó = he/she domesticated

diálogo = dialogue

dialogo = I have a conversation

dialogó = he/she had a conversation

ejército = army

ejercito = I exercise

ejercitó = he/she exercised

ópera = opera

opera = he/she operates / operate!

operá = operate! (only in some parts of South America)

fábrica = factory

fabrica = he/she manufactures / manufacture!

fabricá = manufacture! (only in some parts of South America)

Spanish uses stress in verbs to change its meaning. The written accents are there to tell us where is the stress, and therefore, what is its meaning.

You can see why this would be confusing to a native Engliah speaker who has no problem with different words with the same spelling having different pronunciations ;) - lorenzo9, Nov 28, 2010

Because of that, in written Spanish it is often implied in the accents the intended meaning of a word, and it's not deemed necessary to explain it further when there are ambiguities. If you disregard the accents, you can see where that could be a problem. - bill1111, Nov 28, 2010

Answer 2

There are rules in Spanish which tell you which syllable should be accented and when you follow these rules you will know how to pronounce the word. However if there is an accent in a word, you will know that this means that you must stress the syllable that is accented rather than follow the rule. Therefore the accent mark is extremely important as it will tell you how the word is pronounced.

The accent mark is also used to distinguish between different meanings of the same word. For example Si or Sí.

Answer 3

The accents are an integral part of the spelling, so, that's part of "correct spelling".

You have to remember, an accent can completely change the meaning of a word, so they are important.

Answer 4

Because in some languages, (such as Spanish) the accents are actually part of the spelling.

For instance, esta and está are two entirely different words. So are se and sé. There are many such words in Spanish.

Oh and by the way, the ~ is not an accent. ñ is a different letter than n. (You didn't ask, I just thought I'd throw that in for free.)

Answer 5

The correct answer to "What do 'content', 'converse' and 'present' mean in English?" is "It depends on how they are pronounced (on which syllable is stressed)." The dictionary is no help because it gives multiple meanings that depend on the stress (which they indicated by writing the accent marks that are not present in the standard "spelling". With normal written material, one has to infer the intended sense from the context. In Spanish, on the other hand, if the word is correctly spelled (including accent marks, where appropriate), one always knows exactly how the word is pronounced and this sort of confusion about meaning can never arise. The converse is usually (but not always) also true. i.e. If one knows the pronunciation, one generally knows the spelling (except for a few letter pairs that are not distinguished in pronunciation).

P.S. (In case the above examples are not obvious):

cOntent - (noun) subject matter vs. cont*Ent - (verb/adjective) satisfy(ied)
cOnverse - (noun) opposite vs convErse - (verb) talk/discuss
prEsent - (noun) gift/now/current time or (adjective) in attendance vs presEnt - (verb) to give/offer (Where the upper case vowel is in the stressed syllable)

Answer 6

Consider this example. A worker entered a clinic lunch room and intended to say

"Llamé al hospital"

or "I called the hospital".

Instead, the worker said

"Llame al hospital"

Everyone in the lunch room jumped up and left to call the hospital.

One sentence is in the past-tense. The other is a command to "call the hospital". The only distinction is the accent on the last syllable.

Besides punctuaton and grammer, which is in place for a reason, common conversation can be ambiguous or misunderstood if the pronounced accent is on the wrong syllable.

Please let me know if I am inaccurate in my assessment. It took me a while to figure out what I did wrong.

grammar - lorenzo9, Nov 28, 2010

It's a good example, although it would be 'al hospital', rather than 'el hospital'. - bill1111, Nov 28, 2010

I cleaned it up. Thanks! - 0066c384, Nov 28, 2010

Answer 7

Accents are extremely important not only in written Spanish but also in spoken spanish.

It can be the difference between

Esta (this) and Está (she/you (formal)/he is)

or

Sí (yes) and Si (if)

I know they can be a pain to remember and type, but they are essential to correctly learning Spanish.

Answer 8

The accents utlimately (not in the very beginning) make it easier to learn the words because you know the correct pronounciation from the beginnig, and you also know exactly what word it is. Like Lorenzo said, same spellings don't throw us off in English, but they sure do throw off people who didn't grow up speaking English. Stuff like this drives them crazy. So, on balance, we are dirven less crazy by the accents than they are by the lack of them.....cheer up!!