This is a great example to show the importance of accents in Spanish and that the meaning of a word or phrase greatly depends on proper accentuation. There are many of these play on words and "trabalenguas" in Spanish that exemplify the importance of accentuation.
Steve, I like your approach to learning the language which is via grammar as I continue to see posts from you. This is the best way IMO to learn Spanish (or any language) along with reading at your level, writing, and speaking which includes all facets of interaction. If you pursue this approach you will go far in Spanish because knowing the science behind the language gives you the leverage to determine your own strengths and weakness and to recognize incorrect speech and not imitate the errors of others.
One aspect you will notice in Spanish is that many Spanish speakers don?t understand the rules behind accentuation and as a result their usage when writing tends to be whimsical rather than logical. Placing an accent incorrectly can change the meaning as well as not placing an accent when there should be one. There are many other examples such as: que vs qu?, aun vs. a?n, de vs. d?, si vs. s?, esta vs. est? etc. As well, proper accentuation of conjugated verb forms poses a problem for many.
It's always beneficial to compare sister Romance or Latin based languages and for those of you who speak French will be able to relate to the comparison between the two languages regarding the rules of accentuation. In French if diacritic symbols (accents) are not used when they should be the word is considered incorrectly spelt. The governing body
L?Acad?mie fran?aise equivalent to
La Real Academia for Spanish determines that accents must be placed on words in French when required. This may seem very inflexible however; it falls under the concept of maintaining structure, standardization and grammatical rules in a language. Without these rules of standardization in French it would be a challenge to communicate if each country had its own grammatical rules. IMO it?s easy to master accentuation in Spanish as compared to French. In Spanish accents are required for syllabic reasons with the exception of
la di?resis and
la e?e whereas in French they are required for phonetic purposes in general terms because there are cases where an accent is required (feminine adjectives) but it does not change the phonetic sound of the word.
In addition to this post see this thread here where I commented on spelling in Spanish. (
http://www.dr1.com/forums/spanish-101/51545-ortografia.html)
Salut! Bonne journ?e!
-LDG.
