Suffice to say that Spanish has no umlauts, only diaereses, as seen in words like pingüino or vergüenza. Sometimes people call it an umlaut, but technically, an umlaut and a diaeresis aren't the same thing, despite looking identical.

This symbol – two dots above a letter – is called a diaeresis (pronounced “die heiresses”). What English speakers call a “tilde”, Spanish speakers call la virgulilla or la tilde de la eñe. They even have separate keys on a typical Spanish keyboard.Ĭonfusingly, while the English word “tilde” exclusively refers to this “~” symbol, the Spanish cognate tilde is used to refer to diacritics in general, including the other ones you'll see in this article like the accent on “é”. “ eñe“, and are listed separately in the dictionary – so for example leñador comes later than lengua and lento. In Spanish, “n” and “ñ” are considered to be two completely separate letters. While a tilde-less “n” is pronounced like the English letter “n”, an “ñ” is pronounced roughly like an English “ny”. This accent mark is only ever found above an “n”. Let's start with the simplest diacritic of Spanish’s three: You'll never see a grave accent (è) or a circumflex (ê) in Spanish. Spanish uses three such diacritics: the diaeresis (ü), the acute accent (é), and the tilde (ñ). By the end, you'll never be unsure again about whether to write como or cómo.Ī quick note before we get started: Technically these “accent marks” are called diacritics – an extra symbol added to an existing letter.

We'll cover what the accents in Spanish are, how and when they're used, how they affect pronunciation, and how you can type them on Windows or a Mac. In this article, I'll tell you everything you need to know about Spanish accent marks. The good news is that accent marks in Spanish – like everything else about Spanish spelling – follow very consistent rules. More often than not, an accent (or lack of it) completely changes the meaning of a word.įor example, you definitely don't want to confuse año (year) with ano (anus).Ī proper understanding of Spanish accent rules is therefore essential if you want to read and write Spanish effectively. What about the written accent marks that go above Spanish letters? Spanish accents can be confusing – and I'm not just talking about the way they pronounce things in Chile. Full disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

Spanish words with accents marks list