Learn to detect stressed syllables It will allow us to correctly pronounce the words of a language and, also, learn to write it without spelling errors. This syllable is also related to accentuation because, depending on whether it is an acute, flat or esdrújula word, the regulations will require the use of an accent for its correct linguistic use. In this OneHowTo article we are going to tell you how to identify the stressed syllable so that you can better understand our language and, therefore, you can also apply the knowledge better and avoid spelling mistakes when writing.
The tonic syllable
To identify the stressed syllable it is essential that we understand its concept. It is about the syllable, that is, that part of the word, which we pronounce with more force. It is the one that carries the orthographic accent even if it does not have an accent, understanding the “accent” as the sign that we put in the words and “accent” as the strength that we give to the syllable, whether or not it has an accent.
So one word can only contain a stressed syllable which is the one that will mark the accent and, therefore, the way to pronounce it. Without this distinction, it would be very difficult for people to understand each other when communicating, since each one would pronounce the words in a different way and we would not understand the meaning correctly.
Exercise to identify the stressed syllable
But how is the stressed syllable identified? There is a very simple trick that can help you determine where the accent mark of a word goes. In order to do this, we suggest that you choose any word, for example, “blackboard”. It is a word that, at first glance, does not contain a graphic accent and it will be more difficult for us to know what the tonic is.
Once we have the floor, we will proceed to separate it by syllables: /board/. Now that we’ve separated it, we’re just going to mark pronunciation strength in each of the different syllables and the one that sounds good to us is the one that will mark us which is the stressed syllable. For instance:
- If we pronounce / PI-za-rra / making force on the syllable “pi” we see that this is NOT the correct pronunciation of this word.
- If we pronounce / pi-za-RRA / putting the force in “rra” we see that it is not the way we normally say this word either.
- If we pronounce / pi-ZA-rra / making force in the “za” we see that this is how our word sounds and, therefore, this will be the stressed syllable.
With this simple exercise you will be able to know what the stressed syllable of a word is and, therefore, you will be one step ahead of the spelling norm because, once you know how to detect the tonic, it is easier to learn the stress rules.
The otographic accent
As we have seen, the word “blackboard” has the stressed syllable in “za” but, however, it does NOT contain a graphic accent or accent. The reason is because the grammar of the Spanish language specifies that, depending on where the tonic is, it will require an accent or not depending on the ending of the word.
That is, in Spanish there are three types of words that depend on where the stressed syllable is:
Sharp words
They are those words that have the stressed syllable in the last syllable of all. These words will be accentuated graphically (with the accent mark) as long as they end in:
Therefore, “heart” is accented because it is acute ending in / n / but another word such as, for example, “walk” is not accented because it ends in / r / and, according to the regulations, it does NOT have to be accented.
Plain words
They are the ones that have the force (stressed syllable) in the penultimate syllable of the word. In this case, they are NOT accentuated when they end in
As you can see, it is the exact opposite of the treble ones. For you to see an example, the word “window” has the tonic in “ta”, that is, the penultimate syllable but does NOT have an accent because it ends in a vowel. But, nevertheless, a word like “pencil” does have an accent because it does not end in any of the endings that we have pointed out and its tonic is “la-“, the penultimate.
Word esdrújulas
They are the ones that have the tonic in the third to last syllable of the word. And, in this case, it is very easy to accentuate them because they ALWAYS have an accent. For example “compass” has a graphic accent because the third to last syllable is the tonic and must be accentuated yes or yes; Exactly the same thing happens with the word “tear”, the tonic is the penultimate and must be accentuated.
In OneHowTo we give you more examples of sharp, flat and squiggly words so that you can finish understanding this concept.
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