Acute (´), circumflex (ˆ) and grave (`) accents: when and why

• Acute (´) = open vowel + stress: á, é, í, ó, ú (café, avó)

• Circumflex (ˆ) = closed vowel + stress: â, ê, ô (você, avô)

• Grave (`) = only on à — the a + a contraction ("crase")

• The mark always sits on the stressed vowel

• é vs ê and ó vs ô = open vs closed sound

• No circumflex on i or u (no î/û — they have one sound)

• Accents can flip meaning: e (and) vs é (is)

Accents aren't decoration — they carry real information. Say avó (grandmother) with a closed O and you've just said avô (grandfather). Drop the accent on é (is) and it becomes e (and). These little marks tell you which syllable to stress and whether a vowel is open or closed — so getting them right is the difference between ordering a café and getting a blank stare.

Good news: Portuguese has only three accent marks, and each does one clear job. They share a single habit — the mark always lands on the stressed syllable — so an accent doubles as a built-in "stress here" sign.

Acute (´) = open + stressed

The acute opens the vowel and stresses it:

The famous pair

• "Meu avô mora aqui" [aˈvo] (My grandfather lives here)

• "Minha avó é professora" [aˈvɔ] (My grandmother is a teacher)

Everyday words

• "Quero um café" (I want a coffee)

• "Você está aqui?" (Are you here?)

• "É muito bom!" (It's very good!)

• "Até amanhã!" (See you tomorrow!)

• "Só isso" (Just that)

The crase à

The crase isn't everywhere

You only write à when a + a truly combine. Before a masculine word there's no crase: Vou ao mercado (a + o = ao), never "à". And before a verb it stays plain: Começo a falar (I start to speak).

Words that lost their accent (2009 reform)

The spelling agreement stripped accents off some words:

• idéia → ideia

• vôo → voo

But the everyday ones kept theirs: café, você, avó.

Stressed one-syllable words

A stressed single syllable takes its accent; an unstressed one doesn't:

Open a Brazilian dictionary and you'll find econômico, Antônio and fenômeno wearing a circumflex (closed ô) — yet the very same words appear in Portugal as económico, António and fenómeno with an acute (open ó). It's no mistake: the mark you pick literally encodes the vowel's timbre, and Brazil simply closes those vowels where Portugal opens them. The 1990 spelling agreement gave up trying to merge the two and now accepts both.

Sources: Migalhas — Gramatigalhas, Português com Pestana