Spanish Accents (á é í ó ú): Copy Them, Type Them and Know When They Are Needed
Copy any accented vowel in one click and check the RAE accent rules, including the diacritical accent that changes meaning.
Accented vowels · click to copy
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Spanish accents are not decoration: the mark shows which syllable carries the stress and, in some cases, tells two different words apart.
What are Spanish accents?
Spanish accents are the five vowels — á, é, í, ó, ú — carrying the written accent, the small stroke that shows which syllable takes the force of the voice.
Two ideas are worth separating. The prosodic accent is the greater intensity we give one syllable when speaking, and every word has one. The written accent is the mark on paper, and it only appears when the rules call for it. That is why «casa» and «sofá» are stressed on different syllables in speech, but only the second carries a mark.
Spanish accents use a single mark, always sloping the same way (´). Unlike French or Portuguese there is no grave accent and no circumflex, which makes the system considerably simpler to learn once the stress rules click.
The ü is usually grouped with them, though its job is different: it does not mark stress but shows that the u must be pronounced in «pingüino» or «vergüenza». Different mark, different function — which is why calling it an accent muddies things.
How to type Spanish accents on every system
On a Spanish keyboard one key does it all; anywhere else you need codes or combinations.
Windows
á = 0225, é = 0233, í = 0237, ó = 0243, ú = 0250.
With the US-International layout: ' then the vowel.
macOS
Option + E, then the vowel. For ü: Option + U then u.
Holding the vowel down also opens a picker.
Linux
With the Compose key, on any layout.
Or AltGr + the vowel on international layouts.
Android
All accented variants appear in the pop-up.
Works without switching keyboard language.
iPhone & iPad
Slide your finger onto the accented vowel.
No need to install the Spanish keyboard.
Word & HTML
Accent shortcut inside Microsoft Word.
In HTML: á é í ó ú ü
The dead key throws a lot of people: you press ´ and nothing happens. It is not broken. The system is waiting for the next vowel so it can combine the two into one character. If you want the accent on its own, press the key and then the space bar.
On an English keyboard the most comfortable route is not the Alt codes but switching to the US-International layout in system settings: it turns the apostrophe into a dead key and lets you type accents the same way a Spanish keyboard does, with nothing to memorise.
When does a word take an accent?
It all depends on where the stressed syllable falls. These four rules cover virtually every case.
Take an accent if they end in a vowel, n or s
sofá · camión · además
reloj · pared · feliz
Take an accent if they do NOT end in a vowel, n or s
árbol · lápiz · cráter
casa · examen · crisis
Always take an accent, no exceptions
música · rápido · teléfono
Always take an accent, no exceptions
dígamelo · rápidamente
Applying them means finding the stressed syllable first, which is exactly what our syllable counter does: it splits the word and marks where the stress lands.
One case the four rules do not cover is the hiatus. When a stressed closed vowel (i, u) sits next to an open one, the accent is compulsory even though the general rule would not ask for it, precisely to break the diphthong: «día», «país», «reír», «baúl».
The diacritical accent
Here the accent ignores the rules above: it exists to separate two words spelled identically but meaning different things.
| With accent | Function | Without | Function |
|---|---|---|---|
| él | pronoun (he) | el | article (the) |
| tú | pronoun (you) | tu | possessive (your) |
| mí | pronoun (me) | mi | possessive (my) |
| sí | yes / reflexive pronoun | si | if |
| sé | I know / be (imperative) | se | reflexive pronoun |
| dé | give (subjunctive) | de | of, from |
| té | tea | te | you (object pronoun) |
| más | more | mas | but (literary) |
| qué | what (question / exclamation) | que | that, which |
| cómo | how (question / exclamation) | como | as, like |
A practical test: if you can swap the word for another of the same class — «más» for «mucho», «él» for a name — it is the accented form. If an article or conjunction fits, it goes bare.
The «solo» case: what the RAE actually says
It is compulsory to write the adverb «solo» without an accent where its use carries no risk of ambiguity; it is optional to accent it where, in the writer's judgement, it does. RAE agreement · March 2023
In March 2023 plenty of headlines announced that the RAE had «given the accent back to solo». It had not. The Academy did not change the 2010 rule: it added the phrase in the writer's judgement to make clear who decides whether ambiguity exists. The underlying rule is unchanged.
In practice that means writing «sólo» is incorrect in the vast majority of sentences. The accent is only available when the author genuinely finds the sentence open to two readings, as in «Trabajo solo los martes», which can mean «only on Tuesdays» or «alone on Tuesdays».
The RAE itself recommends a cleaner fix than the accent: rewrite. Swapping the adverb for «únicamente» or «solamente» removes the ambiguity with no spelling debate at all. The same happened to the demonstratives: «este», «ese» and «aquel» are no longer accented even when they work as pronouns.
Capital letters take accents too
This is one of the most persistent myths about the language, and the RAE leaves no room for doubt: Spanish accents apply to every word, including those written in capitals. ÁFRICA, MÉXICO and ÓSCAR take their accent exactly as they do in lowercase.
The myth has a technical origin, not a normative one. In old typesetting many type sets simply did not include accented capitals, and early typewriters and some computer systems inherited the same gap. Leaving the accent off was a limitation of the equipment, not a style choice, and it no longer applies.
The one exception is acronyms written entirely in capitals, which take no accent: CIA, OTAN. Once an acronym becomes a common noun and is written in lowercase, the normal rules resume.
Common mistakes with Spanish accents
Capitals take accents exactly like lowercase. Dropping them comes from a limitation of old printing type, not from any rule.
The accent breaks the diphthong: without it, «mia» would read as a single syllable.
There is no possible ambiguity here, so the RAE requires it without an accent. Only when the meaning is genuinely unclear may the writer add one.
If you need the opposite — a text with no diacritics for a URL or a legacy system — use remove accents, which keeps the letter ñ intact by default. And if the text goes out by SMS, it is worth knowing that the ñ costs nothing while acute accents do: the SMS counter measures it.
Frequently asked questions
How do I type Spanish accents on an English keyboard?
What is a dead key and why does nothing appear?
Do Spanish capital letters take accents?
Does «solo» take an accent or not?
What is the difference between an accent and a diaeresis?
When is the diacritical accent used?
What are the Unicode codes for accented vowels?
Can I strip all the Spanish accents from a text at once?
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