Accented charatures
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How do you know when to use an accent on a vowel? Plus, when using the accent, how do you know which way it is to be used? (go left or go right) thank you
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Hi,It really depends on the word. For example, 'e' without an accent means 'and'. 'e' WITH the accent means 'is'. So it's a matter of just memorizing the differences.For example:Dov'e la macchina? <---here there should be an accent on the 'e', because it is the verb 'essere'. [Where is the car?]La macchina e rossa e grande. <---here, the first 'e' should have an accent, because it is the conjugated form of 'essere'. The second 'e' has no accent because it means 'and'. [The car is red and big.]I believe this to be correct.-Monroe
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Roe,
Thanks for info. As you said, I will just have to memorize which way the accent goes. It was bothering as to what I should do. So thanks again. Doe
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memorize! never! Read, read and read.
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The accents are almost always going the same direction: è
The common exceptions that I know of are perché (why, or because), finché (until), and né (used in the phrase- twice- of neither...nor). -
Another common one is the "a" at the end of a word ending in "ta": La verità (the truth), la città, (the city), la proprietà (the property) and so on.
But not always, of course, that would make it easy! La matita (the pencil) is one exception, and there are plenty more. -
When you reach "future" tenses, you'll even see à and ò at the end of verb forms.
You can sometimes tell, if the spoken words are clearly enunciated.
If the word ends on a short vowel sound (ah, instead of a, for instance) then there is likely an accent on that final a.
Also similar to the difference between hearing è (eh)--"is" and e (a)-- "and", as a previous post noted. -
The accent mark has two forms: grave (`) and acute (´). All vowels at the end of a word can have the grave accent (`), but only the “e” can have both the grave (`) and the acute (´) accent. The difference lies in the pronunciation: "è" indicates an open sound (caffè), whereas "é" indicates a closed sound (perché).
In general, the accent mark is required when the stress falls on the last vowel of words formed by more than one syllable (as in "città", "però", "venerdì", "virtù") and on monosyllabic words that can be confused with a similar term, for example "là/la": "Mia mamma è là" (My mom is there) and "La vedo" (I see her).
Roberta (Italian e-Tutor)
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Dumb question of the day:What's the best way to be able to type accents when using this forum as I have a US keyboard? So far, I just used google translate and copy them, but there's got to be a better method.Grazie mille,George
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Hi George,Not a dumb question at all! It depends on whether you have a Mac or PC, but there are a few ways to type accents in the forum and elsewhere. If you have a PC I would recommend using the International Keyboard. You'll just need to add it via the Control Panel and then select it when you're typing Italian. Here's a quick tutorial for how to use it:http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306560On a Mac, it may depend on the OS you're using, but on my Mac, if you hold down the vowel that you'd like to type an accent over, e.g. 'a', then a pop-up appears with accented versions of that letter to choose from. Here's a tutorial for Mac OS X:http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11264I hope this helps!Best,Erin
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Perfetto! Grazie mille Erin!!
