Este or éste

Question

Ok peeps for those in the know could someone please clarify for me the dealio with 'este vs éste' and if or when the tilde is now required.

I have read this on another forum:

The tilde is no longer required in demonstrative pronouns, capitalized or not. It should be used, however, in those cases where its absence would give rise to misinterpretation. (RAE)

and been corrected by this

contrary to" Kiwi Girl", "acento" is not needed for demonstrative adjectives, but is needed for D. pronouns. - j

and then seen this link by Cogu

Este

which combined have all left me rather dazed and confused on the subject, especially as the RAE links are a bit hard going given my grasp of Spanish lol (it's a bit early in the morning) so would love some comments by those who can offer some clarification

Gracias a todos como siempre!

Thanks to everyone for humoring me - apologies for not doing my own research just this once, gotta run - will have a proper read when I get to Oz :) cya - don;t have too much fun without me ;p - Kiwi-Girl, Apr 17, 2011

This is great, Kiwi. Thanks for asking this question. - sanlee, Apr 23, 2011

Answer 1

for example if you are writting about a celular phone. you say

"Este teléfono celular es lindo."

but you can say "éste es lindo". When you don´t write de noun (teléfono celular) you use tilde in éste.

Ejemplo: "Me gusta mucho este teléfono celular, la pantalla táctil es de primera y la batería es duradera. La cámara es de éste es medianamente buena porque ésta es únicamente de 3.2 Megapixels."

(éste hace referencia al telefono y ésta hace referencia a la cámara por eso llevan tilde.)

Answer 2

i'm kind of surprised that you didn't search this first before making the question, Toakase. Must have had a late night taking pictures last night.

Check this out.

And of course, as with all the FAQs of the Forum, if you search for "esta ésta" you'll get lots of threads on the subject.

be surprised, be very surprised, blame one album to go and a plane to catch after a 5 hour drive and 6 hours left to go! What am I even doing posting? je je lol :p - Kiwi-Girl, Apr 17, 2011

I guess I could have waited till I had time to look for the answer but you know me, I'm not big on patience when it comes to Spanish at least :0 - Kiwi-Girl, Apr 17, 2011

Eh? But precisely! A seach for "este or éste" would have given you the answer in 30 seconds flat! You had to wait to receive all this answers instead of getting instant (and accurate) gratification! :-) - Gekkosan, Apr 18, 2011

Answer 3

Este, ese aquel and solo do not take tilde anymore.

This was the old norm:

Demostrativos. Sea cual sea la función que desempeñen, pronombre o artículo, los demostrativos siempre son tónicos y pertenecen, por su forma, al grupo de palabras que deben escribirse sin tilde según las reglas de acentuación: [...] Por lo tanto, solo cuando en una oración exista riesgo de ambigüedad [...] el demostrativo llevará obligatoriamente tilde en su uso pronominal.

This is the current norm:

Eliminación de la tilde diacrítica en el adverbio solo y los pronombres demostrativos incluso en casos de posible ambigüedad

La palabra solo, [...] así como los demostrativos este, ese y aquel, con sus femeninos y plurales, funcionen como pronombres o como adjetivos [...] no deben llevar tilde según las reglas generales de acentuación, bien por tratarse de palabras llanas terminadas en vocal o en -s, bien, en el caso de aquel, por ser aguda y acabar en consonante distinta de n o s. Real Academia Española © Todos los derechos reservados

Further explanation here

Espero que no te importe que te haya cambiado el enlace a la función de "click" en "Further explanation". Creo que se ve más bonito. :-) - Gekkosan, Apr 17, 2011

Yo he leído esa nueva normativa, pero no me convence mucho. Creo que hay ocasiones (esos casos de ambigüedad que se mencionan) donde realmente es útil acentuar "éste". - Gekkosan, Apr 17, 2011

Por supuesto que no, Gekko, gracias :) - cogumela, Apr 17, 2011

Yo también soy partidaria de ponerla en esos casos, pero no son muy frecuentes. En la palabra del día de ayer, por ejemplo, mucha gente la puso y no había ningún caso en el que hubiera ambigüedad. - cogumela, Apr 17, 2011

Lots of things in Spanish are ambiguous to us beginners and every little bit helps. . .maquina del papa???? Around here they would have made the sound three times: maquina del pa pa pa, just like people say sí sí sí. - lorenzo9, Apr 17, 2011

@Lorenzo: That was a *really* weird one. In fact, I suspect that the person who said it was just trying to be funny / clever, and most likely nobody understood what he meant, and he had to explain. I have no idea how the heck you figured it out! - Gekkosan, Apr 17, 2011

"normative" is an adjective in English. The word you want is "norm". - samdie, Apr 17, 2011

gracias a todos :) - Kiwi-Girl, Apr 17, 2011

I am so glad that we are trying to figure this out. It is very confusing - sanlee, Apr 23, 2011

Thank you everyone - sanlee, Apr 23, 2011

Answer 4

hi friend

for more emplication, I should say:

there is mainly two kinds of demonestrative words: Demonstrative Pronoun(DP) and Demonstrative Adjectives(DA).

the most obvious difference between these two, is that DA. allways have their referent noun after themselvs, that is, you have to bring a name after them. but in the case of DP., they sit in the place of a noun, so need not any noun after them.

in DP use, they may similarize to some other nouns like "Este = East". so, they may be confusing. to get rid of such confuse, they are said to have "acento" mark on them.

howaver, be aware of 2 points: 1- in modern spanish, it is said that acento is not "Essential" for DP. 2- there are other demostrative words that never have acento mark, like: "Esto, eso,, aquello,...". these words usually refer to non determined references and they never have acento mark on themselves, for example, "eso es importante que...". sometimes they also refer to sligtly further things, for example,¨¨ dame ese periódico= give me that newspaper"..

Thank you :) - Kiwi-Girl, Apr 17, 2011

amplication? or clarification :) ...you have to 'put' a name after them, ... so they don't need a noun after them. With DP's they may be similar to other nouns which would be confusing, to remove the confusion they are given an accent mark. - Kiwi-Girl, Apr 17, 2011

However, they never have an accent mark. (not on themselves)... sometimes they refer to 'other' things. (I hope you don't mind me offering some suggestions re the English :)) - Kiwi-Girl, Apr 17, 2011