accent placement with affirmative commands

Question

Howdy, can anyone tell me how to know which vowel to place an accent over when attaching direct object pronouns and/or indirect object pronouns to affirmative commands?

Please and gracias!

• hopeless spanish minor studying for a midterm

Welcome to the forum , we want to help you so fill out your profile If you have a problem PM a mod Bienvenido al foro. Queremos ayudarle, entonces hay que llenar su perfil. Si hay un problema, envíe un mensaje personal (PM) - ray76, Oct 11, 2015

We do not do your homework for you , have a stab at it and we may correct for you . - ray76, Oct 11, 2015

Thank you for filling out your profile . Worth a vote from Ramón. - ray76, Oct 11, 2015

Answer 1

OK! The easiest way to go is remember where the stress is in the affirmative formal or familiar command.

For example. Give! "Da" "Dame, Dale, Danos" no accent needed because the rule for words ending in a vowel or "n" or "s" is being followed.

Add one more syllable and the rule is broken and you need the accent mark.

"Dámelo" Give it to me. "Dáselo" Give it to him/her/them Dánoslo. Give it to us.

Formal commands work a little differently. you need to add the accent even if you just add the direct object.

"Dígalo" Say it--tell it! "Dígamelo" Say/tell it to me. "Dígaselo" Say/tell it to her/him/them

"Díganoslo" Say it--tell it to us

Here's a link to my article on the rules for accent marks.

my rules on accent marks

A vote from Ramón for being such a helpful nice ( some say too nice ) chica. que es muy hermosa. - ray76, Oct 11, 2015

Answer 2

You need to state whether you are dealing with formal or informal commands, and whether they are singular or plural. This sounds like an item from lesson 12 of Panorama. I'm sure the rules are as well stated in the textbook as what I could state them, though some people say I'm a little bit clearer. But you really need to fill in your profile so I or any other member here can properly address your question.

Here are some SD links.

affirmative informal commands

formal commands, affirmative and negative

:) - ray76, Oct 11, 2015

Answer 3

Since you filled out your profile like Daniela2041 requested, I'm going to give you a little guidance here.

I am going to assume that you know the rules for where the stress or accent occurs in any Spanish(1) word that does not have a written accent as part of its spelling. When you add a pronoun to the end of a command word you make the accented syllable one more away from the last syllable (which is now the pronoun you just added). Therefore you need to write an accent on the accented syllable because the stress continues to fall on that syllable when spoken.

When there are 2 vowels together they form a diphthong (pronounced as one syllable with the stress on the first vowel), a semivowel (the weak vowel I or U before a strong vowel A, E, O -again one syllable in pronunciation) or separate syllables with each vowel forming a syllable. Here they are in Spanish: (I've included "y" in these)

Diphthongs: ai, ay, au, ao, ei, ey, oi, oy, eu

Semivowels: ia, ya, ie, ye, io, yo, iu, ua, ue, ui, uy

Separate Syllables: ae, ea, eo, oa

In commands if you have any of the above combinations [and I'm not going to go through all the Spanish(1) verbs to see which ones apply], write the accent on the first vowel in a diphthong, the second in a semivowel and in separate syllables on whichever vowel is accented before you add the pronoun.

(1)All names of languages are capitalized in English.