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Acute & Grave Accents

Grave Accent Marks In Spanish

Antimooner K. T.   Mon Dec 21, 2009 4:05 am GMT
How common is it to see grave accent marks in Spanish? Usually I see acute marks...
K. T.   Mon Dec 21, 2009 4:11 am GMT
é=acute accent

è=grave accent

I read something written by a Spanish person and I noticed some grave accents (in Spanish).
SOMD   Mon Dec 21, 2009 5:30 am GMT
There are no <è> accent marks in Spanish, only <é> ones.
Harman   Mon Dec 21, 2009 6:27 am GMT
That's right SOMD.

In fact you have 3 different names depending mark position.

grave : if mark is placed in the first syllable, like (acción = action)
aguda : if mark is placed in the second syllable.
esdrujula: if mark is placed in the third syllable, like (brújula= compass)

Another false friend i have discovered....

Actually <> Actualmente in fact it's en realidad
Punch   Mon Dec 21, 2009 6:47 am GMT
<<In fact you have 3 different names depending mark position. >>


What about a world like "dándonoslo" or "rápidamente"?
Franco   Mon Dec 21, 2009 8:18 am GMT
What about a world like "dándonoslo" or "rápidamente"?

Sobreesdrújula
Induciomaro   Mon Dec 21, 2009 10:51 am GMT
"Rápidamente":
Don't forget there is an exception, by which every adverb ending in -mente follows the rule of the word without that ending. Therefore, "buenamente" has no accent mark (like "buena"), while "cortésmente" does (like "cortés"), etc. They are also pronounced like this: "buénaménte", "cortésménte", with stress on both syllables.

<<I read something written by a Spanish person and I noticed some grave accents (in Spanish).>>
Some Catalan speakers confuse both accents in Castilian Spanish.
blanche   Mon Dec 21, 2009 11:17 am GMT
Italian and CAtalan distinguish è and é but Spanish just has é
Franco   Mon Dec 21, 2009 11:20 am GMT
Italian é does not mean the same than Spanish é.
Kesington Palace   Mon Dec 21, 2009 3:33 pm GMT
Spanish had é, è and â until 18th century but with no rules when to use which, so è and â were abolished.
joolsey   Mon Dec 21, 2009 4:49 pm GMT
<<How common is it to see grave accent marks in Spanish? Usually I see acute marks..>>


They could simply be living abroad and using an English-patterned keyboard, where the only immediate accent mark to hand is the grave.
Antimooner K. T.   Mon Dec 21, 2009 5:16 pm GMT
I put the actual marks because I didn't mean the aguda, etc. The person put grave marks on some words. Since the person is from Spain I wondered if

a. A French keyboard was being used
b. there are some words that Spaniards note with grave accents

Thanks for the comments. The person was probably switching between French and Spanish.
Antimooner K. T.   Mon Dec 21, 2009 5:19 pm GMT
"Some Catalan speakers confuse both accents in Castilian Spanish."

I wondered about this as well, but the person doesn't speak Catalan afaik.
K. T.   Mon Dec 21, 2009 5:20 pm GMT
"Spanish had é, è and â until 18th century but with no rules when to use which, so è and â were abolished"

Interesting.
Curious   Mon Dec 21, 2009 5:43 pm GMT
Why did Spanish have é and è if It does not distinguish anymore between open and closed e? What did a^ mean in Spanish?




Induciomaro   Mon Dec 21, 2009 9:39 pm GMT
Anyway, Spanish keyboards have all three accents used in French: ´, ` and ^ (also umlaut: ¨, but this one is actually used). I'm not completely sure why, thought.
Franco   Mon Dec 21, 2009 9:50 pm GMT
Spanish keyboards have Spanish diéresis (¨), not umlaut despite both are graphically the same. Grave accent exists because it is used in Catalan too. As for ^ I don't know, maybe because there are many Spanish speakers willing to write in French? Not me of course.
Franco   Mon Dec 21, 2009 9:53 pm GMT
Well, now that I recall ^ exists so one can use pointers in Pascal. LOL.
Leasnam   Mon Dec 21, 2009 11:30 pm GMT
In Spanish, the accent marks are used solely for the purpose of indicating stress: where the stress does not fall at the default location (i.e. second to the last syllable), then it is betokened by an accent (cf 'próximo'). It does not relate to pronunciation as far as sound quality is concerned.
Franco   Mon Dec 21, 2009 11:53 pm GMT
<<In Spanish, the accent marks are used solely for the purpose of indicating stress: where the stress does not fall at the default location (i.e. second to the last syllable), then it is betokened by an accent (cf 'próximo')

>>
That is not the rule ." María" for example should not have acute accent according to that.
Leasnam   Tue Dec 22, 2009 12:57 am GMT
<<That is not the rule ." María" for example should not have acute accent according to that. >>

Funny you should mention that--"ia", "io" etc is the exception. After hitting Send Message I was hoping no one would catch it :D
E-Z   Tue Dec 22, 2009 3:49 am GMT
Good point Franco, that's cuz there is another rule, there are soft vowels (I, U) and strong vowels (A, E, O), so everytime there is a soft and a strong vowel together, they both sound as a single syllable, for example "Maria" which has two vowels Ma-ria, by default, it should be emphasized in the second last syllable, that is "Ma", but since we want to emphasize it in the last one "Ria", we put the accent in the soft vowel, that'd be the "I".

It sounds complicated but it's quite easy, it took me 10 minutes to know the "accent rules", and that way you always know when to put accents and when not to put them.
Induciomaro   Tue Dec 22, 2009 9:13 am GMT
I know it's diéresis, I looked for it in Wikipedia and the article in English said "umlaut". ^ is also "xor" in C.
Franco   Tue Dec 22, 2009 3:05 pm GMT
María probably was a bad example, what about " lápiz" instead?