Spanish Accent Mark Checker: Syllables, Stress and Tildes
Type a Spanish word without worrying about accents. The checker splits it into syllables and shows where the stress falls. Tap a different syllable to see how the spelling must change.
Check a word
Syllables (tap the one you stress):
How the accent rules work
Every Spanish word has one stressed syllable. The written accent (tilde) appears only when the stress is not where the default rules would put it:
| Stress on | Name | Accent when... | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| last syllable | aguda | it ends in a vowel, n or s | , · |
| second-to-last | llana | it ends in anything else | , · |
| third-to-last | esdrújula | always | , |
| earlier | sobresdrújula | always |
Two further rules override these. A stressed i or u next to a, e, o always takes an accent, to show that the vowels are in separate syllables (, , ). And one-syllable words have no accent, except for the short list of diacritic pairs such as tú/tu, él/el and sí/si. Full explanations and a quiz are in Spanish stress and accent mark rules and diphthongs and hiatus.
How to use the checker
- Type a word, with or without accents.
- The checker shows the syllables and highlights the stressed one according to the spelling you typed.
- If that is not how the word is pronounced, tap the syllable you actually stress. The checker shows the correct spelling for that pronunciation and the rule behind it.
- Press Listen to hear the result.
Pairs like papa/papá, hablo/habló and término/termino/terminó show why this matters: the same letters with a different stressed syllable are different words.
Limits
The checker applies spelling rules; it does not know which words exist. If you type a real word but choose the wrong syllable, it will happily spell a word that does not exist. Diacritic accents that depend on meaning (qué in questions, tú as a pronoun) are flagged as notes but cannot be decided automatically.
Frequently asked questions
Can the checker tell me where the stress is in a word I have never seen?
Only if the word is spelled with its accents. Written Spanish shows where the stress is, but a word typed without accents could be stressed in several places (papa or papá). That is why the checker lets you choose the stressed syllable: pick the one you hear, and it tells you how to spell the word.
How does it divide words into syllables?
It follows the RAE rules: a single consonant between vowels starts the next syllable; clusters such as pr, bl and tr stay together; ch, ll and rr are single consonants; two strong vowels (a, e, o) form a hiatus; and a weak vowel (i, u) forms a diphthong with its neighbour unless it is stressed.
Does it handle words like atleta?
The checker divides atleta as at-le-ta, as in most of Spain. In Mexico and much of Latin America, tl is treated as a cluster (a-tle-ta). Both are accepted by the RAE and the accent rules give the same result.
Sources
- Real Academia Española and ASALE (2010). Ortografía de la lengua española, chapter 1 (syllables, diphthongs and hiatus) and chapter 2 (accentuation). Espasa.
- Real Academia Española. Diccionario panhispánico de dudas (2005), entry "tilde". RAE.
- Hualde, J. I. (2005). The Sounds of Spanish, chapters 5 and 13. Cambridge University Press.