Spanish Accents: Rules for á é í ó ú and How to Type Them

Does this Spanish word need a written accent?

Spanish accents follow rules, not memory. Ask the questions below in order and stop at the first yes. They are the general rules of the Ortografía de la lengua española as FundéuRAE sums them up (opens in a new tab), with the special cases it lists. Every rule reads the spoken word: find the syllable you stress, then look at the last letter.

Ask in this order	If yes	Examples
Does it end in -mente?	keep the mark of the word it is built on	ágilmente, increíblemente; torpemente
Is it a question or exclamation word?	it takes the mark	qué, cómo, dónde, cuánto, quién
Is it a single syllable?	no mark, unless it is a word the tilde tells apart	dio, vio, fue; but tú, él, sé
Does a stressed i or u sit next to a, e or o?	the mark goes on that i or u	oído, desafíos, aúnan
Is the stress on the last syllable?	a mark if it ends in a vowel, or in n or s after a vowel	también, razón; but aquel, anoraks
Is the stress on the next-to-last syllable?	a mark if it ends any other way	búnker, cómics, bíceps; but joven, examen
Is the stress further back?	always a mark	número, imágenes, farmacéutico

A few rows catch most writers out. First, a new syllable at the end can change the rule. Joven is stressed on its next-to-last syllable and ends in n, so it has no mark. In jóvenes the same syllable is third from last, and FundéuRAE (opens in a new tab) gives it the mark, as it does to exámenes and imágenes.

Second, a word ending in two consonants is judged by the whole group. So cómics (opens in a new tab) takes a mark although it ends in s, and anoraks does not. Third, a prefix can turn a single syllable into a longer word with a mark: plan becomes megaplán (opens in a new tab), yo becomes superyó.

Where two vowels share the stressed syllable, the mark goes on the open vowel, a, e or o. So farmacéutico and cláusula are right, and farmaceútico is a slip that FundéuRAE's note (opens in a new tab) on these words warns about. Single syllables stay bare even in the past tense: dio, vio and fue (opens in a new tab) are wrong with a mark. Since 2010, rio, guio and lio count as single syllables too.

Capitals are no exception. FundéuRAE (opens in a new tab) answers that a capital takes its mark by the same rules. Dropping it is a spelling mistake, not a matter of style.

Why do the most common Spanish words carry a tilde?

Accent marks in Spanish sit on some of its most frequent words. The list further down holds the Spanish words with each letter that film and TV subtitles use most. Run them through the questions above and each one lands on a rule. One word is the exception, because the rules have moved on.

Words from the subtitle list	The rule that gives them the mark
está, estás, están, será, mamá, papá, quizá	stressed on the last syllable, ending in a vowel, n or s
también, después, pensé, haré, aquí, así	the same rule
razón, pasó, adiós, corazón, habitación, algún, ningún	the same rule
última, única, único, número	stressed further back than the next-to-last syllable
día, había, podría, ahí	a stressed i next to a, e or o, a mute h between them included
qué, quién, cómo, dónde	question and exclamation words
él, sé, sí, mí, tú, más	short words the tilde tells apart
aún	aún when it means todavía; aun, meaning incluso, has none
sólo	no rule today: the RAE recommends solo with no mark

The ahí row needs one more line. FundéuRAE (opens in a new tab) applies the stressed i or u rule across a silent h. That is why tahúr has its mark.

The last row is a relic of subtitling habits. The RAE's summary of its 2010 Ortografía (opens in a new tab) recommends solo, este, ese and aquel without the mark in every use. These words are always stressed, so there is no unstressed twin to tell apart. A note from March 2023 (opens in a new tab) allows the mark on the adverb only where a sentence could be read two ways.

Which short Spanish words does the tilde tell apart?

A handful of pairs that would otherwise look the same: some Spanish accent marks exist only to tell them apart. In each pair the word with the mark is the stressed one. That is the reason FundéuRAE (opens in a new tab), quoting the Ortografía, gives for the diacritic tilde in Spanish. Its list of single syllables follows; every pair, with an example sentence for each spelling, is on Spanish words with accents.

With the mark	Without it
tú, the pronoun you	tu, your
él, he	el, the
mí, me after a preposition	mi, my, or the note mi
sí, yes, or oneself	si, if, or the note si
té, tea	te, the pronoun, or the letter t
dé, a form of dar	de, of
sé, a form of saber or ser	se, the pronoun
más, more	mas, but

Question words follow the same logic: qué, cómo, cuándo, cuánto, dónde, quién and cuál against que, como, cuando, cuanto, donde, quien and cual. Aún (opens in a new tab) takes the mark when it means todavía; aun means incluso. Where both words of a pair are always stressed, neither gets a mark. Di from decir and di from dar look the same.

When does the Spanish ü need its two dots?

Only in gue and gui, when the u is said. Without the dots that u is silent. The diéresis (opens in a new tab) tells the reader to pronounce it: vergüenza, pingüino, antigüedad. FundéuRAE adds a rarer use in poetry, on the first vowel of a pair the poet wants split into two syllables.

Verbs ending in -guar keep the rule through their forms. FundéuRAE (opens in a new tab) corrects averigue to averigüe and lists averigüé, averigües, averigüemos and averigüéis with it.

On a Mac, the dots come from Option+U, then U. On the US-International layout the ü is on AltGr+Y, and AltGr+U types ú.

Where do ¿ and ¡ go in a Spanish sentence?

At the start of the question or exclamation itself, which is not always the start of the sentence. The signs are not Spanish accents but punctuation, with rules of their own. FundéuRAE's rules for the signs (opens in a new tab) treat a missing opening sign as a spelling mistake. The closing sign may stand alone only in brackets, (?) or (!), to show doubt or surprise.

• A question that starts mid-sentence opens there, in lower case: Siempre se plantea la misma duda: ¿qué comer?
• No full stop follows the closing sign at the end of a sentence; the sign already ends it.
• The signs can be doubled or mixed, but the closing ones mirror the opening ones: ¿¡Entró!? and ¡¿Entró?! are both right.
• The question words inside keep their marks: ¿Cómo lo hizo? ¿Cuándo?

The table of keys below lists both signs for the Mac, for Windows Alt codes and for the US-International layout. On a Spanish layout they share a key of their own, shown on the Spanish keyboard page.

How does the US-International layout type Spanish?

It turns the apostrophe into an accent key, the easiest way to type Spanish accents on a US keyboard. Microsoft's layout data (opens in a new tab) for this layout, read on 2026-10-18, lists what the apostrophe makes before each letter. Before a, e, i, o and u it gives á, é, í, ó and ú. The quotation mark, typed with Shift, puts the two dots on ü. The apostrophe followed by the space bar gives a plain apostrophe: learn that habit first.

The layout also puts each Spanish letter on AltGr, as the table of keys below shows. Windows adds the layout from its language settings (opens in a new tab). A Spanish layout works differently: ñ has a key of its own and the accent sits on a dead key. The Spanish alphabet page covers the letter names and the 2010 changes to the alphabet. The acute accent page follows the same mark through the other languages that write it.