Diacritic marks with the use of el?

Question

When is él used vs. el? Also, what are these marks called in Spanish?

Answer 1

They are called "acentos agudos" or just "tildes" in Spanish.

Él with the accent means "he".

El without the accent is the masculine singular form of "the".

They sound the same in spoken Spanish (context obviously takes care of the meaning), so the accents are only there to distinguish the two in writing. In words with more than one syllable, these marks would show which syllable was stressed, but since these words only have one syllable to stress, the accent doesn't change the pronunciation at all.

Answer 2

In addition to Pumpkin´s explanition, él is also used as it in masculine, ie: El coche se me falló. Él ya no camina (The car broke down on me. It no longer runs).