Spanish pronunciation and accent marks, explained
Spanish is spelled almost exactly as it's said. Five vowels, each with one short, pure sound, and a few consonants that differ from English: that's most of it.
Written accents follow rules too: they show which syllable is stressed when the normal rule doesn't apply, and tell apart a few pairs like si (if) and sí (yes).
The essentials
- Vowels: a, e, i, o, u, always short and pure, never reduced to “uh”.
- H is silent; j sounds like the ch in Scottish loch; ñ is the ny of canyon; v sounds like b.
- In most of Spain z, and c before e or i, sound like English th; in Latin America and parts of Spain they're an s (seseo). Both are correct.
- Stress: words ending in a vowel, n or s stress the next-to-last syllable; others stress the last. A written accent marks every exception: café, árbol.
- Questions and exclamations open with ¿ and ¡: ¿Qué tal? ¡Qué bien!
Every lesson on this topic
Each lesson has a full explanation, examples you can listen to, and exercises with answers.
A0 (the A0 course)
- The five vowels: Each Spanish vowel always has one short, pure sound
- Letters that surprise English speakers: h, j, g, ll, ñ, qu, c and z, v: what they sound like
- Word stress, written accents, ¿ and ¡: Which syllable to stress, what the accent mark tells you, and the upside-down marks
In the app, these lessons are taught one idea at a time with audio, practised with questions that explain the rule when you slip, and brought back for review on later days.
Other topics
- Ser vs estar, explained
- Por vs para, explained
- Preterite vs imperfect, explained
- The Spanish subjunctive, explained
- Gustar and verbs like it, explained
- Spanish reflexive verbs, explained
- Spanish object pronouns, explained
- Spanish commands (the imperative), explained
- Spanish future and conditional, explained
- The Spanish present tense and stem-changing verbs
- Spanish perfect tenses: he hablado, había hablado and more
- Tú vs usted (and vosotros vs ustedes), explained
- Spanish articles, gender and agreement, explained