Putting on an accent

The Spanish are as class-conscious as anybody else, although when they speak you won’t always be able to tell which kind of school they went to or how they hold a knife.  In Spain, an accent tells you where a person lives or comes from. So a marquis born, bred and resident in a certain region tends to retain that region’s accent, instead of having it ironed out once he stops playing with the housekeeper’s children. 

Tone, volume of voice and vocabulary indicate whether a Spaniard is what is described as “educated” regardless of his or her level of education, and whether he or she is socially acceptable and/or well-off into the bargain.

The other type of accent perches over a word but both are called un acento although the grammatical type is known as una tilde, a word which also covers ~, that most Spanish of symbols.

Unless you write much Spanish accents are low priority but there are occasions when adding an accent gives a word another meaning, beginning with más which means more. 

An accentless mas means although or but (and don’t expect to hear it as often as aunque or pero): quiero otro gato, mas sé que no debo – I want another cat although I know I shouldn’t. 

Solo means alone but an accent turns this into only:  le gusta vivir solo – he likes living alone but sólo le gustan los perros – he only likes dogs.  You can forget this particular accent if you want, because new language rules thrashed out in Guadalajara (Mexico) last November consigned it to the grammatical scrapheap by making it optional.

Porque corresponds to because: come porque tiene hambre – he eats because he’s hungry although this word can prove elliptical for newcomers, as Spanish thought patterns continue to regard porque as because even though an English-speaker will translate it as why in no sé porque tiene hambre – I don’t know why he’s hungry.

An accented el porqué is a noun meaning reason: el porqué de su enfado – the reason for his anger.

Devoid of an accent, por que is roughly equivalent to through which, for which or because of which, although it’s not a much-used construction in Spanish and amounts to the same thing as an English why: esa fue el motivo por que lo echaron – that was the reason why they threw him out. 

Sandwiched between question marks and wearing an accent, ¿por qué? is a questioning why: ¿por qué te gustan los gatos? – why do you like cats? 

All of which can be confusing although the Spanish see the differences, not the similarities between these four, not unlike a mother with quads.

 

Té, quiero

Native-born Spanish speakers will tell you that accents matter only at school and in business letters but although this sounds suspiciously like the contempt that familiarity breeds, accents may be something you don’t have to worry about too much.  But it’s still handy to be aware of the potential emotional upheavals resulting from not knowing te quiero means I love you but writing té quiero gets you tea.