Spanish Intonation

Quick Answer

When words are combined in speech to form sentences, the resulting rise and fall of the speaker’s voice is called intonation (entonación).

In Spanish, much like in English, intonation varies depending on whether the sentence is a statement, a question, or an exclamation. For example, when uttering the sentences María está trabajando.(Maria is working.), ¿Estás cansado?(Are you tired?), or ¡Feliz Año Nuevo!(Happy New Year!), different intonation is used.

Spanish Intonation

Stress or Intonation: What’s the Difference?

Each Spanish word has its own individual stress; it falls on one of its syllables, for example: trabajandoor chocolate. This stress is sometimes marked with a written accent on top of the stressed syllable’s vowel, as in María, está, or fábrica.

When words are combined to form sentences, they have their own pitch and rhythm...a sort of musical quality. Linguists refer to this as intonation.

Types of Intonation

There are three basic types of intonation in Spanish:

Type of Intonation	Description	Punctuation	Examples
Statement	The rise and fall of your voice isn’t very marked. It’s quite subtle and flat, usually with a falling intonation at the end.	Statements normally begin with a capital letter and end with a punctuation mark, such as a colon, a semicolon, or a period.	Está lloviendo.(It's raining.) Estás cansado.(You're tired.)
Question	The pitch is more musical. It usually rises at the beginning, then falls, and rises again at the end.	Questions in Spanish generally begin with an opening question mark (¿) and end with a closing question mark (?).	¿Cómo te llamas?(What's your name?) ¿Estás cansado?(Are you tired?)
Exclamation	The pitch usually rises and falls a few times, and then may rise or fall at the end, depending on emphasis.	Exclamations in Spanish usually begin with an opening exclamation mark (¡) and end with a closing exclamation mark (!).	¡Feliz Día de la Madre!(Happy Mother's Day!) ¡Qué alegría verte!(How nice it is to see you!)

Here are some more examples of sentences using the above types of intonation:

examples
¿Cuánto cuesta la camisa? How much is the shirt?
¿Cómo te llamas? What's your name?
¿Dónde estás ahora? Where are you now?
¡Qué buena suerte! What good luck!
¡Feliz cumpleaños! Happy birthday!
¡Que le vaya bien! I hope things go well for you!
Tengo mucha sed. I’m very thirsty.
Hablo un poco de español. I speak some Spanish.
Es hora de comer. It’s time to eat.

So, Where Do I Place The Upside-Down Question and Exclamation Marks?

Unlike English, Spanish uses an opening question mark (¿) or an opening exclamation mark (¡) to indicate where the intonation of a question or an exclamation begins. This is very useful when you’re reading, but it can be tricky when you’re writing. There are quite a few question words in Spanish that usually have an opening question mark before them. Check them out below!

Note the opening question mark (¿) and exclamation mark (¡) are required when writing questions or exclamations in Spanish! If you're not sure how to type them, check out this article!

Spanish Question Words

Spanish	English	Spanish	English
quién	who	qué	what
cuándo	when	dónde	where
por qué	why	cómo	how, what
cuál	which	cuáles	which ones
cuánto	how much	cuántos	how many
de dónde	from where	para qué	why, for what
adónde	to where	a quién	to whom
por dónde	where/whereabouts	con quién	with whom

Notice that the above question words have accents on them. This differentiates them from their non-interrogative counterparts.

Do you want to learn more about these upside-down marks? Check out this article. And this one too!

Do you want to learn more about Spanish question words? Check out this article! For some Spanish exclamatory words, you can check out this article!

Is Intonation What Makes the “Acento”?

Not quite. The word acentocan refer to the written accent placed on a Spanish word or to the stress with which a word is pronounced. But acento often refers to a person’s accent, i.e., their individual way of pronouncing words. Speakers from a particular geographical area can have their own acento made up of the specific pronunciation of certain letters and words, but also of a specific intonation. Therefore, be prepared to hear different melodic lines and intonations when you meet people from Argentina, Cuba, Mexico, or Spain, for example.