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🦋 Accent marks in Spanish

I checked out Cien Años de Soledad from the library today -- not sure how far I'm going to be able to get with it, but I'm having fun with it. So far I have gotten to where I can read the first two paragraphs (about 5 pages) pretty fluently; I've been going back over them to try and work the vocabulary into my brain before I move on. I was made very happy by the sentence, "El mundo era tan reciente, que muchas cosas carecían de nombre, y para mencionarlas había que señalarlas con el dedo." -- "The world was so new, many things did not yet have a name, and in order to mention them, you had to point them out with your finger." I loved this sentence when I read the book in English but had forgotten it.

I am curious about what exactly accent marks do in written Spanish. Are they optional? In these first 5 pages there are several instances of aun and aún, which seem to be the same word and pronounced the same way. Maybe there's a subtle distinction I'm not picking up on. And I seem to recall seeing solo both with and without an accent over the first "o".

...Well this page solves at least one piece of the puzzle; accent marks are not optional, and "sólo" means something different from "solo" ("only" vs. "alone") -- it doesn't mention "aun," but I'm assuming there is a subtle difference in meaning between the two spellings. That distinction looks pretty synthetic to me; forcing different spellings for what is essentially a single word, according to how it is used in a sentence. Seems like it must be a pretty common mistake to leave the accent off of "sòlo" or put one onto "solo".

...Okay: this page says, "The word aún means todavía or still, while aun means incluso or even." So, problem solved, I guess.

posted evening of Saturday, January 24th, 2009
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In recent years the Real Academia de la Lengua Española has decided to make some changes in the accent marks rules, and if I'm not mistaken, words like aún, sólo, más, and a few others can be written without the accent, as their meanings can be understood within the context of the phrase they're in.
A completely different thing comes when you are dealing with verbs, as they can change from present to past tense just by changing the accent, like "yo declaro", "él declaró". By the way, you'll see that "él" is "he", and "el" is "the" in singular masculine.

Oh, and it's a good thing to read you're ehmm seeing normally!

posted evening of January 24th, 2009 by Jorge López

In recent years the Real Academia de la Lengua Española has decided to make some changes in the accent marks rules

Interesting -- I guess they agreed with me! (grin)

Right, I had gotten the thing with verb past tenses -- this difference in spelling reflects an actual difference in pronunciation, right? And I was thinking that the difference in spelling between pronouns and demonstrative adjectives might reflect a subtle change in stress patterns in the sentence.

posted morning of January 25th, 2009 by Jeremy

You are pretty much right about it all!
Soon you'll be reading spanish better than I do ;)

posted morning of January 25th, 2009 by Jorge López

One thing that is puzzling me a bit, is the construction (which García Márquez seems to be fond of) "él mismo" -- I am reading this as meaning approximately "he, the one I was just talking about," -- the first few times I saw it, I thought it said "el mismo", which made more sense to me.

posted morning of January 25th, 2009 by Jeremy

The Girlfriend informs me that in Spanish an accent mark always indicates additional stress on a syllable, so the word looks different and sounds different. (If it's a single syllable word, it gets a stronger stress in the sentence.)

posted afternoon of January 25th, 2009 by Randolph

él mismo --> himself
el mismo --> the same

Oh, there some words which get an accent (that is, an additional distress on a syllabe) without getting an accent mark. There are some rules about this as well.

posted morning of January 26th, 2009 by Jorge López

So in this clause for instance (where Melquíades has been the subject previously): "Según él mismo le contó a José Arcadio Buendía mientras lo ayudaba a montar el laboratorio,..." -- I am reading that as roughly, "According to what he himself told JAB while he helped him construct the laboraory,..." Does that sound about right?

posted evening of January 26th, 2009 by Jeremy

It sounds pretty much right to me!

posted morning of January 27th, 2009 by Jorge López

Thanks!

posted morning of January 27th, 2009 by Jeremy

I accidentally came across this page Jeremy. Let me first say that I commend you for taking on the task of reading Cien Años de Soledad in Spanish... not an easy task even for a native Spanish speaker. Great book though and one of my favorites!

You are pretty much on target about your findings as it relates to accent marks. For the most part, as I'm sure you know by now, there are basic rules of grammar for the use of accent marks, but as happens with the Eenglish language, there are exceptions to the rules. In some cases there is no reason; like, why the "h" is pronounced in most English words and not in others, such as in the case of "herbs" and "hour."
Great work and I agree with Jorge that you will soon be better at it than we are. ;)
Alba

posted evening of November 18th, 2009 by Alba

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