By stefaniescocozzelli Last updated: January 26, 2021

Squiggle Me This: 3 Italian Accent Marks and Their Meanings

There’s more to the alphabet than the song you learned as a kid.

At least, if you’re speaking Italian.

Italian goes beyond the standard spelling rules of English in a lot of ways and accent marks are one of them.

Accents may not seem like much at first. They might almost appear negligible to new students.

But don’t let their appearances trick you! These little lines are more important than they look.

Italian accent marks are a vital part of mastering the language, and using the wrong one in the wrong place (or forgetting one!) can change the meaning of a word entirely.

The good news is that they’re pretty simple to learn.

This post will be your guide, taking you through the most important information for figuring out these dashes and lines and giving you helping you understand their place in the Italian language.

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3 Italian Accent Marks and Their Meanings

When Are Italian Accent Marks Used?

In the most basic sense, accent marks act as a sort of pronunciation guide. They can differentiate words with the same spelling, or show you how to read a certain vowel.

Think of letters with accent marks over them as completely unique letters all on their own, not identical at all to their unaccented twins. It might just be a small dash over a vowel, but it can be a key piece of spelling a word correctly in Italian.

Accent marks vary by language. While some other Romance languages, like French, might have a variety of accent marks that span vowels and consonants alike, Italian accent marks only apply to vowels.

Vowels play a big part in the Italian language, since most words end in vowels, so this isn’t something to be overlooked.

An accent mark is used in the following cases:

When a word has two or more syllables and ends in a stressed vowel, like caffè (coffee).
To show the correct pronunciation of a vowel (long or short).
To differentiate two words that look the same—we’ll look at some specific examples of this later in the post.
To show where to place the stress in a word, especially when there is a similar word with the stress in a different place, like àncora (anchor) and ancora (again, still, yet). This is often omitted.
To signify the correct reading in single-syllable word that ends in two vowels.

Double-vowel endings, as mentioned above, require an accent on the end to help give some distinction. You can see this in words like più (more) where the u has a grave accent over it (we’ll get into the names in more detail soon).

Remember: The only exceptions to the double vowel rule are the words qui and qua (here).

Accent marks can occasionally be optional—mostly in cases where there’s no potential confusion between similar words—but the proper accenting should be learned regardless of this.

In Italian, where the tone and sound of your words are very important, accent marks are pretty important. Beginners shouldn’t ignore them, or you might end up saying something you don’t really mean!

For some extra help figuring out these crucial little marks, try watching subtitled videos like the ones on FluentU.

FluentU takes authentic videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.

You can try FluentU for free for 2 weeks. Click here to check out the website or download the iOS app or Android app.

Seeing the text and hearing the pronunciation at the same time will help you connect the two, and learn them better than through simply reading.

Below, we included as many pronunciation examples as possible for a better understanding of how accent marks can change the sound of an Italian word. Read on!

Grave Accent ( ` )

The accent marks in Italian have unique names that can help you tell them apart. This mark is known as the “grave accent,” which is called accento grave in Italian.

Because of how common it is, it’s easy to run into this little word several times even in your earliest Italian studies.

This mark can appear attached to any Italian vowel at the end of a word, and it indicates a short sound, like “eh” for e and “ah” for a.

You might recognize this accent mark in particular from one of the most common words in Italian, the simple è. This word, pronounced “eh,” is the conjugation of the verb essere (to be) and means “is” for certain subject nouns (generally for he, she or it).

The grave accent is very important, as it makes è distinct from a very similar word: e. This word (or letter), on the other hand, means “and,” another vital piece of sentence construction.

This is just one example of how much accent marks really matter when it comes to proper Italian grammar and pronunciation. While the words look like nearly identical letters, they have different meanings and even distinct pronunciations: the word e is pronounced more like “ahy.”

That one little mark makes a world of difference.

Another big example of the difference is the word for “yes,” sì (pronounced “see”).

Some other examples of this accent mark in action include più (more), lunedì (Monday) and però (however).

Acute Accent ( ´ )

The acute accent mark is less common than the grave accent and there’s a specific reason for that: It’s only used with the letter e.

Don’t let this fool you, though. You’ll still run into these marks pretty often in your studies, and in a lot of important words.

They look pretty similar to grave accents but try not to confuse them: While the grave slants down from left to right, the acute mark slants down from the right.

The acute accent indicates a long vowel sound such as in the word perché (why, because). The accent can often be found on the che endings of several compound words of a similar vein, like giacché (since) and benché (despite).

Some other words where you’ll encounter the acute accent include ventitré (twenty-three) and poté (conjugated form of potere, meaning “to be able to”).

You might notice that, as the last example suggests, you can sometimes find this accent mark in certain conjugations of the passato remoto (remote past tense), like credé (conjugated form of credere, meaning “to believe”).

Circumflex Accent ( ˆ )

The circumflex accent mark is even rarer than the acute and you probably won’t see it particularly often in your Italian studies. You might recognize it from more common usage in some other languages, looking like a tented set of dashes that point upwards.

When used correctly, this mark appears on top of vowels, but in particularly rare situations.

Its main uses are to contract the ending -ii and to pluralize words ending in -io. This mark is, as said earlier, pretty rarely used, even for these specific purposes. You won’t find it in sentences starting with the subject Io (I).

The specific nature of its use along with the fact that it can often be optional makes this one of the least common accent marks in Italian.

A word that you might see with this accent mark include diarî (plural of diario, meaning “journal”), pronounced dee-ah-ree.

The circumflex is by and large a grammatical accent. Because it’s usually optional, the pronunciation tends to remain the same whether the accent is present or not. (For instance, diari is pronounced the same with and without the circumflex accent mark.)

You’ll likely encounter this mark the most often in literature and poetry, rather than casual writing.

Using Accent Marks Correctly

It might be a little difficult to figure out just how accent marks function in Italian at first. The best way to get a solid grip on them is to study vocabulary and spelling carefully.

Remember that accented letters can function almost like their own unique piece of the alphabet, so it’s important to know how to use them properly.

Many native Italian speakers drop accent marks in their writing, but as a student of the language it’s important to learn the rules before you learn how to properly break them.

Brushing up on your Italian vocabulary is a key part of making sure that you know where accent marks go and what they mean, so studying accents, words and proper spelling all go together hand-in-hand.

Next time you study from your vocabulary lists, pay close attention to the accent marks you see and when they show up. They’re important pieces of the words you’re learning and your sentences won’t function properly without them.

Accent marks might seem challenging, but they can be easily mastered with studying your vocabulary and spelling carefully. Make sure you notice those little marks: They mean a whole lot!