The absence of accents in words occupies the top positions in any classification of the most common misspellings in social media times. Whether for convenience, speed or ignorance, accents are scarce in many texts and messages. Even the predictive text technology that almost all devices enjoy seems insufficient to write correctly. Proof of this is the type of queries received by search engines and digital dictionaries. As an example, this doubt that abounds on the internet: “are you or are you, how do you write?”
It is the second person plural of the present indicative of the verb to be, a very common verb and verb form. To write this word correctly, it is enough to know the general rules of accentuation.
You are written with an accent because it is an acute word ending in “s”. It should be remembered that words are divided into syllables and always have a tonic syllable, which is the one that is pronounced with the greatest intensity. In this case we are faced with a two-syllable word: you are.
The next question that may arise is why the stress falls on the letter a and not on the i of the tonic syllable. The answer is in the diphthong, that is, in the presence of a sequence of two different vowels that are pronounced in a single syllable. Specifically, “you are” is formed by an open vowel (a) followed by a closed vowel (i), which is known as a decreasing diphthong (like oil, twenty or comb). When the word has a graphic accent, following the accentuation rules, the tilde is always placed over the open vowel.
According to the place that the tonic syllable occupies, the words are classified as acute, flat and esdrújulas. It must be taken into account that the tonic syllable is not always accompanied by a graphic accent:
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
