Accent Marks in Spelling

Catalan uses à, è, é, í, ò, ó and ú. Only e and o take either accent direction. An accent belongs to a vowel in the stressed syllable, including in capital letters.

First decide whether the word needs a written accent, then choose its direction. Learn café/cafè-type differences from the spelling of the Catalan word, rather than copying another language. The ordinary Catalan spelling is cafè. Accent direction on e varies in some accepted regional spellings, such as conèixer/conéixer; this is not permission to swap every é and è.

The open/closed distinction concerns vowel quality, not how loudly the syllable is pronounced. Some short words carry a distinguishing accent, such as és versus es, even though stress alone would not require one.