The Tonic Accent

French has a monotone pronunciation, meaning that no syllable stands out from the others. In Spanish, this is not the case. In each word, one of the syllables is always more stressed than the others. It is called the tonic syllable. The position of this syllable follows fairly simple rules, although it sometimes happens that the tonic accent is placed on another syllable. In this case, a written accent is added to mark the position of the stress in the word.

Here are the main rules for finding the tonic accent in Spanish:

• If a word ends with a vowel, an -n or an -s, then the tonic accent is on the penultimate syllable: libro, coches, suben.
• If a word ends with a consonant or a -y other than -n and -s, the tonic accent is on the last syllable: papel, llamar, estoy.
• If the tonic accent is in a different place than in the two previously mentioned rules, it must be marked in writing: café, árbol, espectáculo

In the plural, the tonic accent is always on the same syllable as in the singular. This means that when a word takes the plural mark, it is possible that the written accent mark disappears or moves:

Here are, however, some exceptions in plural accentuation: