What are SERIOUS words

The serious words They are the ones that have the greatest presence in the Spanish language and also have very precise accentuation rules. It is necessary to know them in order not to doubt if they have a tilde or not they carry it and thus improve your spelling when writing.

In this lesson from a PROFESSOR we want to explain what are serious words, what are its characteristics and we will show you some examples so that you can see it clearly.

Index

1. what are serious words
2. When are grave words accentuated?
3. Examples of serious words
4. Exercises on serious words
5. Solutions to Serious Word Exercises

The serious words or also called plain words are those who have stress on the penultimate syllable. That does not mean that they always have to be written with an accent, but that is the syllable that you must mark stronger with your tone of voice.

For example: Wire.

The word cable is divided into these syllables "ca" and "ble". In this case, the syllable "ca" sounds more pronounced or, as we can also call it, it is the

Since the tonic position is in the penultimate position, the word must be made up of at least two syllables. A plain word can have all the syllables you can imagine, as long as the strongest one is the one before the last position.

For example: unimaginable.

The word unimaginable has 6 syllables that are divided as follows: i/ni/ma/gi/na/ble. As the penultimate syllable "na" is the strongest, we will be talking about a serious or flat word.

The plain words, in Spanish, are accentuated whenever DO NOT end in "n" "s" or a vowel. A good trick to remember these stress rules is that they behave exactly the opposite of sharp words.

• For example: agile. The word agile has the stressed syllable positioned in the antepenultimate position, therefore, it is grave and ends in "l", consequently, YES it must be accented.

Once this rule has been explained, you will realize that many of the serious words in Spanish that end in "n", "s" or a vowel and that, as a result, they do not have a tilde.

• For example: greeting. The word greeting is plain because it has the stressed syllable in the penultimate position, but it ends in a vowel, so we should NOT stress it.

Exceptions in the accentuation of plain words

whenever we talk about spelling rules, we must take into account the exceptions of some types of words. In the Spanish language, there are some serious words that have exceptions when it comes to accentuation and they are the following:

• We must put an accent on those serious words that form hiatus, of open vowel + stressed closed vowel, even if the word ends in "n", "s" or a vowel. For example: day, acts, slept, etc.
• We must write tilde to differentiate the interrogative pronounsand exclamatory Graves of relative pronouns that are written the same. This type of accent is called a diacritic, since it serves only to distinguish the meaning between two words. For example: where, how much, who, etc.
• We will put a tilde in all those plain words ending in "s", as long as this letter is preceded by another consonant. For example: records, biceps, forceps, etc.
• All those adverbs ending in the suffix -mente, as long as the original adjective was written with an accent mark. These words are only considered flat by the suffix, since otherwise we would be talking about words sobreesdrújulas. For example: usefully, easily, etc.

Find out how it should be accentuation of grave words in Spanish.

So that you can see more clearly the meaning of serious words and at what times we should accentuate them, we leave you with Some examples.

Examples of serious words WITH tilde

These are some Examples of serious words that carry an accent:

• abbey
• distracted
• marble
• aphonia
• docile
• mast
• agile
• dollar
• Mendez
• agony
• Dominguez
• Nestor
• album
• slept
• would observe
• piggy bank
• duo
• orography
• happiness
• ecology
• Oscar
• analogy
• selfish
• I might
• Angel
• Elijah
• poetry
• anthology
• Energy
• policeman
• apology
• sterile
• polyester
• treeether
• portable
• car
• ethology
• hero
• sugar
• easy
• psychology
• bay
• felix
• pubescent
• biology
• femur
• record
• corpse
• philosophy
• laughed
• camaraderie
• fluorine
• stir
• cancer
• forceps
• River
• character
• fragile
• Rodriguez
• locksmith
• soccer
• roared
• cease
• geology
• Sanchez
• grass
• crane
• watermelon
• surgery
• skilled
• simile
• climax
• would do
• Suarez
• comic
• Hernandez
• toner
• Condor
• heroin
• chest
• Cortazar
• improbable
• clover
• crater
• item
• tunnel
• breeding
• ketchup
• versatile
• Cristobal
• pencil
• look-out
• date
• Leader
• volatile
• weak
• marble
• zoology

Examples of serious words WITHOUT tilde

we leave you with some Examples of serious words that are not stressed:

• fan
• consume
• backpack
• supply
• run
• sample
• bee
• curtains
• cloud
• coat
• notebook
• eyes
• Grandma
• how much
• belly button
• watercolor
• spoon
• organize
• ornament
• neck
• bear
• Water
• bill
• panther
• air
• messes up
• talking
• rug
• tooth
• hair
• yellow
• disk
• pear
• Amazon
• Sunday
• dog
• before
• elephant
• tabs
• sand
• salad
• stone
• Argentina
• waiting
• leg
• assumes
• stadium
• griddle
• attentive
• esteem
• beach
• wasp
• stars
• feather
• banana
• structure
• places
• bank
• figure
• port
• banker
• fruit
• redact
• boot
• source
• T-shirt
• good
• galaxies
• resume
• search
• won
• check out
• horse
• cat
• Rhino
• hair
• genius
• stone
• wire
• Fat
• breaks
• slaps
• worm
• clothing
• footwear
• ants
• greetings
• hike
• ingenuity
• holy
• quilt
• giraffe
• chair
• canine
• play
• luck
• eat
• juice
• overlaps
• incantation
• desk
• covered

Examples of sentences with serious words

These are some examples of sentences that contain serious words. We have marked the stressed syllable of plain words to make it easier for you to identify them.

• I want to paint my room before summer.
• I bought a computer in another city.
• Martin's grandmother promised to help us with the chores.
• Carlos worries that his girlfriend will not be able to move out.
• The avenue was full of people in costumes.
• A rock tells us a lot about the past.
• The statement was not enough for him to go free.
• Your cousin Esteban is a hopeless hypocrite.
• Racism is a very serious problem.
• The man in black managed to gain his trust.
• The women of Europe were pioneers in fashion.
• Your ideas are nothing but nonsense.
• In Arabia they found a very old pirate ship.
• Life is full of experiences.
• The mentality of this group is the key to their performance.

The best way to know if you have understood a lesson well is to put it into practice. we leave you with some exercises so you can try to solve them yourself and consult the agenda if you still have any questions. Later you will be able to find the solutions to compare them with the answers you have given.

Exercise 1

In this first exercise we propose that you look for the plain word of each of the rows of words that we propose. You can write it next to it. We leave you the first exercise already done so you can take it as an example:

• artist - accordion - area - admire: artist
• boxing - scale - horn - balcony
• shell - folder - cook - fell
• difficult - centipede - docile - tell
• choose - splendid - elephant - stands
• favor - easy - facilitated - fragile
• like - gender - spent - people
• find - wound - habit - will
• English - prevent - useless - complete
• never - justice - young - play

Exercise 2

Put the tick to the following plain words that need it. We leave you the first exercise already done so you can take it as an example:

• matches
• Tuesday
• pair of scissors
• jail
• pencil
• easy
• wine
• desk
• apple
• cedar
• clover
• pineapple
• Oak
• fern

Exercise 3

In the following sentences there are plain words that are not accented and others that are accented incorrectly. You must find all the plain words in the sentences and decide if they are accented or not according to the rules that we have taught you in this lesson. We leave you the first exercise already done so you can take it as an example:

• "The contract did not establish any extra payment." - "The contract did not establish any extra payment."
• "I would like to go to Russia before reaching old age."
• "The morning started in a great way."
• "The bull did not react as they expected."
• "Looking for an answer to this is wasting time."
• "The climax was a long time coming."
• "As a child I could never play soccer with my teammates."
• "In almost all countries there is veneration of saints."
• "His hand is very agile when it comes to sewing something."
• "They lose whenever they decide to bet on a boxer."
• "I prefer coffee without sugar."
• “There is a condor in my window”.
• "Héctor's grandmothers share a blood bond with each other."
• "I don't know if you are skilled enough to do this job."
• "The city is confident that you can succeed in the tournament."
• "I couldn't win in the competition."

We hope that this lesson has been of help to you to know what are serious words and have some examples. If you are interested in continuing to learn about this topic or something similar, do not hesitate to consult our spelling section.

Image: ExampleOf

These are the solutions to previous exercises, so you can compare your answers with the correct ones. We recommend that you do not consult this exercise before you have tried to do the exercises yourself, as this will allow you to assess whether you have understood the lesson correctly.

Solutions of exercise 1

These are the correct answers to exercise 1:

• artist - accordion - area - admire: artist
• boxing - scale - horn - balcony: horn
• shell - folder - cook - fell: folder
• difficult - centipede - docile - say: difficult
• choose - splendid - elephant - is: elephant
• favor - easy - facilitated - fragile: fragile
• like - gender - spent - people: people
• find - wound - habit - will do: wound
• English - prevent - useless - complete: useless
• never - justice - young - play: justice

Solutions of exercise 2

These are the correct answers of exercise 2:

• matches
• Tuesday
• pair of scissors
• jail
• pencil
• easy
• wine
• desk
• apple
• cedar
• clover
• pineapple
• Oak
• fern

Solutions of exercise 3

These are the correct answers of exercise 3:

• "The contract did not establish any extra payment."
• "I would like to go to Russia before reaching old age."
• "The morning started in a great way."
• "The bull did not react as they expected."
• "Looking for an answer to this is wasting time."
• "The climax was a long time coming."
• “As a child I was never able to play soccer with my teammates.”
• "In almost all countries there is veneration of saints."
• "His hand is very nimble when it comes to sewing something."
• "They lose whenever they decide to bet on a boxer."
• "I prefer coffee without sugar."
• "There is a condor in my window."
• "Héctor's grandmothers share a blood bond with each other."
• "I don't know if you are skilled enough to do this job."
• "The city is confident that you can succeed in the tournament."
• "I couldn't win in the competition."

If you want to read more articles similar to What are serious words and examples, we recommend that you enter our category of Orthography.

• Gonzalez-Acosta, Y. (2011). The accentuation of acute, llanas and esdrújulas words, in fourth grade (Doctoral dissertation, University of Pedagogical Sciences "Félix Varela Morales").
• Gonzalez Lami, Y. (2011). Learning tasks for the correct writing of plain words in students (Doctoral dissertation, Captain Silverio Blanco Núñez University of Pedagogical Sciences).