01 How accents and diacritics work
An accent, or diacritic, is a mark added to a letter that changes its sound or makes it a separate letter. These are the marks you will meet across the Latin alphabet, with example letters and the languages that use them.
| Mark | Shape | Example letters | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Acute | ´ | á é í ó ú ć ń ś | Marks stress or a distinct vowel. Spanish, French, Portuguese, Polish, Irish, Hungarian. |
| Grave | ` | à è ì ò ù | A low or open vowel, or tells two spellings apart. French, Italian, Portuguese. |
| Circumflex | ˆ | â ê î ô û | Often a long vowel or a dropped historical letter. French, Portuguese, Welsh. |
| Diaeresis / umlaut | ¨ | ä ö ü ë ï ÿ | German umlaut shifts the vowel; the French and Spanish diaeresis splits a vowel apart, as in naïve. |
| Tilde | ˜ | ñ ã õ | A nasal sound. Spanish ñ, Portuguese ã and õ. |
| Caron / háček | ˇ | č š ž ř ě ň | A “sh, ch, zh” type sound. Czech, Slovak, Slovene, Croatian. |
| Cedilla | ¸ | ç ş | Softens c to an /s/ sound. French, Portuguese, Catalan, Turkish. |
| Ring | ˚ | å ů | A separate vowel. Danish, Norwegian and Swedish å; Czech ů. |
| Macron | ¯ | ā ē ī ō ū | Marks a long vowel. Latin, Māori, Latvian, Japanese romanization. |
| Ogonek | ˛ | ą ę | A nasal vowel. Polish and Lithuanian. |
| Stroke | / | ł ø đ | A distinct letter in its own right. Polish ł, Danish and Norwegian ø, Croatian đ. |
| Dot above | ˙ | ż ė | A separate letter. Polish ż, Lithuanian ė. |
02 Accents by language
The accented letters each language relies on. Open any base letter below to get the exact keystroke for that character on Windows, Mac, Word, Google Docs and phones.
| Language | Accented letters |
|---|---|
| French | à â ç é è ê ë î ï ô û ù ü ÿ œ æ |
| Spanish | á é í ó ú ñ ü ¿ ¡ |
| German | ä ö ü ß |
| Portuguese | á â ã à ç é ê í ó ô õ ú |
| Italian | à è é ì î ò ó ù |
| Polish | ą ć ę ł ń ó ś ź ż |
| Czech | á č ď é ě í ň ó ř š ť ú ů ý ž |
| Turkish | ç ğ ı İ ö ş ü |
| Scandinavian | å ä ö æ ø |
| Vietnamese | à á ả ã ạ â ê ô ơ ư đ (and stacked tone marks) |
03 Accents by letter
04 Collections
05 Guides and how-tos
Longer explainers on the software and keyboard side of this pillar.
06 FAQ
How do I copy a character from this page?
Search or browse to what you need, then tap its key and it is copied to your clipboard instantly. Paste it anywhere with Ctrl+V (Windows) or Cmd+V (Mac). Everything here is free and needs no sign-in.
Do these characters work on phones and in social media?
Yes. These are standard Unicode characters, so they paste into almost any app, browser, document, username or bio. A few older or plain-text-only fields strip them out, which is a limit of that field, not the character.
What is the quickest way to type an accented letter?
On both Windows and Mac there are dead-key shortcuts (for example Option+e then a letter on a Mac gives an acute accent). Each letter’s page lists the exact keystroke for every platform, or you can just copy it from here.
What is the difference between an accent and a diacritic?
In everyday use the two words mean the same thing. A diacritic is any small mark added to a letter, such as an acute, a tilde or a cedilla. Accent is the common word for it, though strictly it refers to marks that show stress. On this site, accent covers every diacritic on a Latin letter.
How do I type an accented capital letter?
Use the same method as the lowercase form and add Shift. On a Mac, press the dead key, then Shift and the letter, so Option+e then Shift+e gives É. On Windows, each letter’s page lists the capital’s own Alt code. On phones, press and hold the capital letter to open its accent popup.
Do accents actually change a word’s meaning?
Often, yes. In Spanish, año means year while ano does not, and in French a and à are different words. In many languages an accent marks stress or a wholly separate letter, so leaving it off can change the meaning or the spelling. It is worth typing the correct accented form.
Which language uses the most accents?
Vietnamese uses the most, stacking tone marks on top of vowel diacritics. Czech, Polish and Hungarian also use a rich set. Western European languages such as French, Spanish, Portuguese and German use a smaller, more familiar group of accented letters.