First, my english is not good, so I'll do my best. Rules about accent: Words have syllables. And words have a sound emphasis. If the sound emphasis is on the last syllable, put an accent on it if this finishes in n, s or vocal. Example: canción, anís, dominó. If the sound emphasis is on the penultimate syllable, you have to put it if the word doesn't finish in n, s or vocal. Example: árbol, Pérez, If the sound emphasis is stressed on the third-from-the-last syllable, always put accent. Example: pídelo, brújula, dámelo If the sound emphasis is stressed on the fourth-from-the-last syllable, always put accent. Example: mátamelo, enséñamela. Imperative has nothing to do with accents, all depends of the stress of the sound and the number of syllables. Example: If you say imperatively to a friend ¡Compra! (Buy) you don´t put accent. In this case you need to think: Hmm...when I pronounce the word ¡Compra" I stressed the word on the penultimate syllable. And I rememberd that Sariel told me I have to put the accent only if the word doesn't finished in n, s or vocal. ¡Compra! finishes in A (vocal), so I don't have to write the accent. These rules are the basic ones. But there are more. Accents in spanish can help you in many cases to recognize the kind of word or its pronounciation. Example of kind of word: Tú eres mi amigo (personal pronoun) ----- Tu : possessive adjective (Tu perro) Example of pronounciation (and the pronounciation affects directly the meaning of the word): If you read this word: JUGO..¿How can you guess the pronounciation? Well, if the emphasis were on the last syllable, it would have accent because the last letter is "O". That word would be JUGÓ (verb JUGAR) (Example: Ella jugó, she played). But the word of my example doesn´t have an accent. That tells you the emphasis has to be on the penultimate syllable: JUGO (Juice).

Quería felicitar a Sariel y Ramiro porque te lo han explicado muy bien. Creo que como dice Ramiro si consigues diferenciar la sílaba en la que ponemos el acento al hablar no tendrás grandes problemas con la ortografía de la mayoría de los acentos. Me parece que todo lo que necesitarás saber entonces está aquí: http://buscon.rae.es/dpdI/ acentuación Es bastante simple pero está escrito para personas que hablan español. Un saludo.

Well, I think that Sariel's explanation is great ! :D Even though, I do believe that those rules can easily work for a person whose first language is Spanish because the pronunciation is already known; in the other hand, if you are just learning it then you will hesitate where to place the stress syllable. I know that placing accents in Spanish is really difficult so I strongly recomend to "listen" a word and then train your ear to detect the stress syllable then you can follow Sariel's advises. Well, in order to answer the question to WATSKEBURT : - No, in Spanish the accent is not placed in the same syllable. Nor in imperative form nor others. But don't worry, you've seen that you can learn some rules that will help you. - Then, in general Imperative forms of verbs in Spanish don't have any written accent when they are in simple form, like : compra, duerme, tomen, come, lava, encuentra, hable, llama, etc. - But, if the Imperative form is linked with a pronoun then the word will take a written accent and it can be in the third or fourth vowel: cómprame, duérmete, tómenlo, cómetelo, lávala, encuéntranos, háblele, llámalos, etc - You have to keep in mind that there're several exceptions like : házlo or vete. - You also have to know that Spanish is spoken different in each country and there're some in South America where people stress the syllable (or put the accent) in the last Syllable like: comprá, tomá, observá... etc. It happens in countries like Argentina, Uruguay, etc. So, that's why I said that the first thing to do is to listen the word and train the ear ;-) It will flow little by little... and then, it will be easier than you can think... :D Greets!

It's me again! I found this link. It can explain all the accent stuff better than me! http://users.ipfw.edu/JEHLE/courses/accents.htm