aAhhh

ayI

eday

iee

ooh

uoo

ca,co,cuc=k

cuaquack.

ce,cic=th or s

h

ga, go, gugah, go, goo

guagwah

gue, gui(hard g sound)

gü(w…)

ge, gihey, he (scratchy h sound)

jh (scratchy)

lly as in yet

ñnya

quk

rrrrrrrrrrrrr

vb

zth or s

u-va

me-le-na

bo-ni-ta

he-re-dar

de

guerra

güera

me

mi

lluvia

gitano

gel

hay

¿Cuándo?

¿Cuál?

¿Qué?

There are five vowels in Spanish, a, e, i, o, and u. Of these, a, e, and o are considered strong vowels, i, and u, are considered weak vowels.

Each strong vowel in a word forms its own syllable. So a combination of two strong vowels forms two syllables. A combination of two vowels in which at least one is weak forms one syllable. This is called a diphthong.

A-ni-mal has three syllables. Bai-le has two syllables, since the first syllable is a

combination of a strong vowel and a weak vowel. Fui has only one syllable, since the two vowels are both weak. Bi-blio-te-ca has four syllables, since the second cluster of

vowels consists of a weak one and a strong one. Ca-os has two syllables, since the two vowels are both strong.

For more practice visit: http://www.austincc.edu/jevatt/accents/syllables.html

1. Words ending in a vowel, -n, or -s are stressed on the next to the last (penultimate)

syllable:

nada compro toallana-da com-pro to-a-lla

origen esta conmemorativoo-ri-gen es-ta con-mem-o-ra-ti-vo

zapatos tele institutoza-pa-tos te-le in-sti-tu-to

2. Words ending in any consonant except -n or -s are stressed on the last syllable:

doctor realdoc - tor re-al

ciudad ciu - dad

comerco - mer

When rules #1 and #2 above are not followed, a written accent is used:

está hablábamos es-tá ha-blá-ba-mos

invitaciónin-vi-ta-ción

vivíavi-vía

Written accents are also used to differentiate between words that are pronounced the

same but have different meanings:

si - ifsí - yes

mi - mymí - me

el - theél - he

tu - yourtú - you

All interrogative (question) words have a written accent to signal that someone is asking a question and not just making a

statement.¿Cómo? How/What?

¿Cuál(es)? Which (ones)?¿Cuándo? When?¿Cuánto(s)/a(s)? How much/many?¿Dónde? Where?¿Qué? What?¿Quién? Who/whom?¿Por qué? Why?