The verbs can become gibberish for those who do not speak Spanish. There are three verb conjugations, three verb modes, 23 tenses… And it is estimated that there are more than 6,000 verbs in standard language and as many in cultured, scientific or technological language. Seen this way, writing the verbs correctly seems like an impossible sudoku to solve. However, it is enough to know the general rules of accentuation to clear up any doubt. Let’s take as an example a frequent query in search engines: the second person plural of the present indicative of the verb to have. How is this written? Do you have or do you have?
What has been said, although many choke on verbs, the doubt raised by the second person plural of the present indicative of the verb to have, is resolved by applying the rules of accentuation. It is written you have, with tilde. Let’s see why.
It should be remembered that the words have a tonic syllable, the one that is pronounced with greater intensity. According to the place that the tonic syllable occupies, the words are classified as acute, flat and esdrújulas. “You have” is made up of two syllables (te-néis), the second being the tonic, because we are faced with an acute word.
And acute words are written with an accent when they end in a vowel, in -n or -s (hopefully, carbon; Andrés). The only exception is when the final -s or -n is preceded by another consonant (zigzags; robots).
At this point, someone may wonder why the tilde for “you have” falls on the letter e and not on the i of the tonic syllable. The answer lies in the diphthong, that is, in the presence of a sequence of two different vowels that are pronounced in a single syllable (ai-re;puer-ta;cien-cia or, in our case, you-neis). Specifically, “you have” is made up of an open vowel (e) 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.
For those who doubt the use of the tilde in this and other words, there is nothing better than a brief review of the rules:
The words have a tonic syllable, that is, the one that is pronounced with greater intensity. 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:
The vowel of the tonic syllable is marked by an orthographic sign, the tilde or graphic accent, provided that:
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
