Some Spanish verbs need an accent mark (tilde) added to their past participle forms. This change is needed to keep the right pronunciation or stress pattern, especially for verbs where the stress falls on an unexpected syllable in the past participle.
The Rule
Add an accent mark (tilde) on the ‘i’ of the past participle ending (-ído) for certain verbs to keep the stress on that syllable.
Common Examples
- reír (to laugh) → reído
- sonreír (to smile) → sonreído
- freír (to fry) → freído
Using these Past Participles
“Ellos han reído mucho durante la comedia.” (They have laughed a lot during the comedy.)
Key Points to Remember
- The accent mark is super important for keeping the correct stress and pronunciation in these past participles.
- Without the accent mark, these words would be mispronounced with the stress on the second-to-last syllable (following the general Spanish stress rule), which would be wrong.
- These past participles follow the same rules as regular verbs for gender and number agreement when used as adjectives.
- In compound tenses with “haber”, these past participles stay the same, just like regular verbs.
- This group is different from verbs in the Vowel Preservation Changes category (like caer → caído), where the accent mark is there to keep the vowel sound from the infinitive.
Understanding these accent mark additions is important for correct pronunciation and spelling of these specific Spanish past participles.