Spanish 1.1.1. Syllable Stress in Spanish Words

Syllable Stress in Spanish follows well-established rules. This eliminates the need for guessing and makes Spanish a phonetic language. If you practice enough, you should eventually be able to pronounce any Spanish word without listening to an audio transcription or referring to a dictionary.

Knowing which syllable to stress in Spanish is critical to speaking comprehensibly and achieving fluency. The good news is that, unlike in English, where syllable stress seems more arbitrary, it is much easier in Spanish. It is important to ensure that you master these rules early on as you build your vocabulary.

The three main rules are:

1. If the last syllable is a vowel (a, o, u, i), “s,” or “n,” the stress falls on the second-to-last syllable, also called the penultimate syllable. For example, “factura” (invoice): fak-too-ra, “joven” (young): ho-ben, and “lunes” (Monday): loo-nes. The stressed syllable in the pronunciation script is in bold.

2. If the last syllable is not a vowel (a, o, u, i), “s,” or “n,” the stress falls on the last syllable. For example, “azul” (blue): a-sool, “abril” (April): ab-reel, “hablar” (to speak): hab-lar.

3. If the word has a written accent ( ´ ), this overrides the two previous rules, and we simply stress the syllable that contains the accent. For example, the word “inglés” (English), if not marked by an accent, following the first rule, would be pronounced as “een-gles.” However, the accent on the second syllable overrides that rule and necessitates that we pronounce it correctly as “een-gles.” Other examples include “útil”(useful): oo-teel, “habló”(spoke): ab-lo, and “jóvenes” (youth): ho-be-nes.

The above three rules constitute the basic guidelines that should be practiced frequently as you read Spanish text. In addition to these rules, there are two less important rules to remove any confusion.

The two secondary rules are:

1. Spanish vowels are classified as strong (a, e, and o) and weak (i and u).

• If the stressed syllable contains two vowels, one is strong and the other is weak, the stress falls on the strong vowel. For example, “reina” (queen): rrey-na, “igual” (equal): ee-gwal, “cielo” (sky): cye-lo.
• If the stressed syllable contains two weak vowels, the stress falls on the last of the two vowels. For example, “viuda” (widow): byoo-da, “ruido”(noise):rrwee-do.
• If the stressed syllable contains two strong vowels, the two vowels are pronounced as two distinct syllables, also known as hiatus, and normal stress rules apply. For example, “europeo” (European): eyoo-ro-pe-o, “maestro”(teacher):ma-es-tro, “empleado”(employee):em-ple-a-do.

2. A word in its plural form stresses the same syllable as in its singular form. A written accent may be added or removed to enforce this rule. For example, “joven” (young): ho-ben becomes “jóvenes”: ho-be-nes, “inglés” (Englishman): een-gles becomes “ingleses”: een-gles-es.

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