Why do some of the verbs get tildas?
se lo quiero comprar becomes comprárselo
and
se lo estamos decorando becomes estamos decorándoselo
Why a tilda added to verbs?
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Cassandra T.Kwiziq community member
Why a tilda added to verbs?
This question relates to:Spanish lesson "Spanish pronouns le / les become se when used with lo, la, los, las (indirect with direct pronouns)"
Asked 11 months ago
Marcos G. Kwiziq Q&A super contributor
It’s to preserve the stress.
com-PRAR has the stress at the end, on the syllable “PRAR”. So the accent in com-PRÁR-se-lo keeps the stress on the same syllable “PRAR”.
The same is true for de-co-RAN-do and de-co-RÁN-do-se-lo.
InmaNative Spanish expert teacher in Kwiziq
Hola Cassandra
Marcos is absolutely right. Just adding that when the word becomes a longer word when you add the pronouns, and the stress is now on the third before last syllable, you need to use the tilde on that syllable. These words, with the accent on the antepenultimate syllable are called "palabras esdrújulas".
Here are two useful articles to understand more about accents and tilde in Spanish. I hope they're useful.
Saludos
Inma
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