Accents and punctuation
What is the rationale for accents? How do you know when to use them? Is it only memorization?
2 Answers
There are rules, but first you have to know where the inflection falls in the word, so if you don't know how the word is spoken, you'll be hard pressed to follow the rules. After a while, you can almost always know how the word is spoken even without hearing it just by being used to the language, at which time placing the accents is quite easy. I'll let someone who is more familiar with the lessons post the link to the lesson that teaches accents.
This is a L O N G topic, but in short, there are some general rules, just by spelling and number of syllables and what letters the syllables end in, that tell you exactly how a word should be pronounced, and on which syllable the accent (emphasis) will lie.
But, the real world always offers exceptions. Spanish conveniently and explicitly points those exceptions out via accent marks. For instance, the word for after is después. The normal rules, which I´ll give you a link to in a moment, would have the first syllable emphasized. But that is not how that word is pronounced in Spanish. It is pronounced with the second syllable emphasized. Thus, the accent over the ´é´ in despues. The rules have to be memorized, but there are only 3 or 4 once you know which vowel combinations are dipthongs, and then all exceptions are in the accents themselves.
Takes a bit of getting used to, but after a short while, you´ll know where to put the accent on a new word you just heard, even when you´ve never seen it before. Here´s some help on that;
and
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Hope that helps.
Roger
