How to know when to use the accents above letters?

Question

How does one know when to use the accents above letters? For example, in this sentence, the accent is used above "el":

"él es fuerte"

But in this sentence, there is no accent at all, even though the word is the same:

"yo quiero el huevo"

Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

Well there's a good amount of rules for accents, and I still have a lot to learn regarding them but this example isn't that complicated. Él (with accent) means he, whereas el (without accent) means the. He visto que él quiere el huevo. I've seen that he wants the egg.

Thank you for using the differences in a sentence. That helped me understand. - Clesker, Sep 8, 2011

Answer 2

In the first case the "él" is a personal pronoun referring to "he" and it always carries an accent. In the second case "el" is a definite article, which doesn't carry an accent. The only way I know how to learn these is by observation over time and by studying phonetics. Believe it or not, there are a lot of native speakers in my phonetics class that have a lot of trouble with written accents.

That's surprising. I guess it can be quite difficult, even for native speakers. - Clesker, Sep 8, 2011

I'm glad I'm not the only one! - brittanyclark, Sep 8, 2011

Answer 3

In unusual words, the accent marks where stress needs to be placed. Some words just need to be memorized, because accent marks also differentiate between different-meaning words.

Example: Él and el Él means 'he' and el means 'the'.

Hope this helps a little bit.