Siéntese. Sir sit

Johan V.C1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

Siéntese. Sir sit

Can you please explain why there is an accent on the e in imperative of 3rd person of sentir.

To me the syllabification prior to adding the se are sien.te. As the word ends in neither an a,s or n the accent falls on the last syllable ie “te”.  Therefore, after the se is added should the accent not fall on the té?

Asked 4 years ago
InmaNative Spanish expert teacher in Kwiziq

Hola Johan

The word before adding the pronoun is stressed on the -e of the first syllable: siente

This doesn't take an accent because the stress is on the penultimate syllable and the word ends in a vowel. 

But when adding the pronoun se, the word has three syllables and the stress is kept on the same syllable as before, therefore we have: sientese = sién -te-se. Because the stress is now on the third to last syllable you need the written accent (all words with the stress on the third to last syllable need the written accent whichever ending they have)

I hope this clarified it.  

Saludos

Inma

Johan V. asked:

Siéntese. Sir sit

Can you please explain why there is an accent on the e in imperative of 3rd person of sentir.

To me the syllabification prior to adding the se are sien.te. As the word ends in neither an a,s or n the accent falls on the last syllable ie “te”.  Therefore, after the se is added should the accent not fall on the té?

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