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I am good at learning vocab but the professor insists on us using the correct accents on our word or we don't get any credit even if we had the right idea and had the correct word but didn't spell it right.

I could even spell it right but if I don't include the accent mark then I could get the question wrong even though I had all the right letters.

Anyway, is there a grammar rules or something to put accents above the vowels? It would be helpful.

I know though one exception is esta and está with the accent over the a. One means this and the other means It is conjugated verb of estar.

Maybe I just have to memorize the accents for the words I mean. Anyway, if you could help me out thanks.

DGaleano
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Math Whiz
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  • Yes, of course there are rules. It should be the rules that you need to memorize , and not the accents of each word (but of course the more you read or see those words the easier it will become to tell something is odd when you misspell the word). Is your teacher expecting you to have the right accent marks without explaining you guys the rules? That doesn't seem fair or professional for a teacher. – Diego Aug 27 '20 at 19:07
  • Fortunately the rules are few and cover all cases but I that has already been covered in some other questions. Soon someone will point you out to that. There are basically 3 kinds of words. With stress in the last syllable. With stress on the second from the last syllable, and with stress in a syllable before last two.Depending on the last letter of the word and one of those 3 cases you use the accent or not. It's not that complex. – DGaleano Aug 27 '20 at 19:17
  • Yes she does. I'll just see about the other rules – Math Whiz Aug 27 '20 at 19:19
  • Here you go: https://spanish.stackexchange.com/a/663/11102 – DGaleano Aug 27 '20 at 19:21
  • @DGaleano I would not expect a teacher to explain those rules in the very first class. One usually first learns some basic words and sentences (asking for names, directions, etc) before going into the grammar. It would probably be hard for students to learn accent placement rules without knowing any words to apply those rules to. Still, accents are important and I think it is reasonable to expect them. At least that was my experience when learning French... – wimi Aug 27 '20 at 20:32
  • @wimi the op says yes she does. I agree it is ridiculous but ¯\(ツ)/¯ – DGaleano Aug 27 '20 at 20:46
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    @Diego it is perfectly normal to expect students to just memorize spellings early on. When they have enough vocabulary and experience pronouncing the words, the rules can be given, but the rules are also pointless if you don't know how the word is said. esta or está depends on which syllable is stressed, but early students tend to not master accurate spoken stress, which makes it difficult to explain the rules. Students want to know everything early on, but it's not realistic, and somethings just have to be accepted early on knowing they'll be explained later. – user0721090601 Aug 28 '20 at 03:58

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