1. A syllable consists of at least one vowel sound and/or a vowel paired with one or two consonant sounds. (In the examples below the words are both Spanish and English)

animal: 3 syllables: a-ni-mal                                    Argentina: 4 syllables: Ar-gen-ti-na

2a. Words that end in a consonant other than n or s are stressed on the last syllable.

a-zul

2b. Words that end in a vowel, n, or s are stressed on the second to last syllable.

li-bro

2c. Words whose accent falls on the third to last syllable always have an accent (tilde).

rápido

2d. Rarely, words are accented on the fourth, fifth, etc. to last syllable. These are limited to verbs with pronouns attached to them.

mí-ra-me-lo

3. Spanish features both weak and strong vowels. A, E, O are strong while I, U are weak.

This affects pronunciation as two strong vowels cannot be in the same syllable. Therefore, two strong vowels found next to each other belong to separate syllables whereas a combination of a weak and strong vowel, or two weak vowels create a diphthong or a gliding sound which results in a single syllable. In order to break this diphthong, an accent may be placed on one of the vowels.

ma-es-tro

puer-to

far-ma-cia

po-li-cí-a