In Spanish the accent could be on any of the syllables that make up a word. For example, on a three syllable word, the accent (starting from the end of the word) can be:
On the first syllable:
medicó
On the second syllable:
medico
On another :
médico
As you can see, some words (médico, medicó) may carry an orthographical accent, i.e. the accent is marked with a ‘tilde’ on top of the stressed vowel.
The shifting of the accent from one syllable to another could indicate a changing on the meaning of a a word in Spanish; médico is a noun whereas medico y medicó are inflected forms of the verb medicar. That’s why it is so important to accentuate correctly the words in Spanish.
To that effect, at this early level of our curse, just try to remember these rules:
1. One syllable words NEVER carry a written accent.
2. The words with the accent on the third vowel (or before) ALWAYS carry a written accent.
3. The words with the accent on the second vowel carry a written accent ONLY if they DO NOT end on N, S, or a VOWEL.
4. The words with the accent on the first vowel carry a written accent ONLY if they end on N, S, or a VOWEL.
These rules do not apply in the following situations:
5. The ‘weak’ vowels (u, i) always carry a written accent when stressed, no matter what position they are on the word. e.g.: María, (second vowel of the word that ends on a vowel)
6. Some one and two syllable words carry an orthographical accent in order to indicate a different meaning (or syntactical function) to another similar word. e.g.: el (article), él (personal pronoun); como (conjunction), cómo (interrogative adveb), etc.
