You’ve seen them everywhere — the slanted line over the é in café, the squiggle over the ñ in jalapeño, the two dots over the ü in Müller. These small marks have a formal name: diacritical marks, or simply diacritics.
If you’ve ever wondered what these marks are called, what they actually do, and how to type them without hunting through symbol menus, this guide covers all of it in plain English.
What Is a Diacritical Mark?
A diacritical mark is a symbol added to a letter that changes how it’s pronounced, what it means, or both. The word comes from the Greek diakritikos, meaning “distinguishing” — and that’s exactly the job: distinguishing one sound or word from another.
In English we mostly encounter diacritics in borrowed words — café, résumé, naïve, piñata. But in many languages, diacritics aren’t optional decoration. They’re as essential as the letters themselves. In Spanish, si means “if” while sí means “yes.” In French, ou means “or” while où means “where.” Drop the mark and you’ve written a different word.
The Major Diacritical Marks
Here are the marks you’ll actually encounter, what they do, and where they’re used.
The Acute Accent (´)
Examples: á é í ó ú
A short line slanting up to the right. In Spanish it marks word stress (teléfono — stress on lé). In French it changes the vowel sound (é sounds like “ay”). Found in Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, Polish, Czech, and many others.
This is the mark our site is named after — acute accents.
The Grave Accent (`)
Examples: à è ì ò ù
The mirror image of the acute — slanting down to the right. French uses it to change pronunciation (è sounds like “eh”) and to distinguish words (ou vs où). Italian uses it to mark stress on final syllables (città, caffè).
The Tilde (~)
Examples: ñ ã õ
The wavy line. In Spanish, ñ is not “n with a decoration” — it’s a completely separate letter of the alphabet with its own sound (“ny” as in canyon). Portuguese puts tildes over vowels to make them nasal (São Paulo, pão).
The Umlaut / Diaeresis (¨)
Examples: ä ö ü ë ï
Two dots above a vowel — and this one is actually two different marks that happen to look identical:
- The umlaut (German) changes the vowel’s sound entirely: schön, über, Müller
- The diaeresis (French, English) signals that two adjacent vowels are pronounced separately: naïve (“nah-EEV,” not “nave”), coöperate in old-fashioned English spelling
Same two dots, different jobs.
The Cedilla (¸)
Examples: ç
The small hook hanging below the c. In French and Portuguese it softens the c to an “s” sound before a, o, or u: façade, garçon, curaçao. Without the cedilla, those c’s would sound like “k.”
The Circumflex (^)
Examples: â ê î ô û
The little hat. In French it often marks where an s disappeared from the word centuries ago (forêt was once forest; hôpital was hospital). In Portuguese it marks vowel quality and stress.
The Ring (˚)
Examples: å
A small circle above the letter, found in Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish. The å has its own sound (roughly “oh”) and its own place at the end of those alphabets.
The Caron / Háček (ˇ)
Examples: č š ž ř
An upside-down circumflex, common in Czech, Slovak, and other Central European languages. It typically softens the consonant: č sounds like “ch,” š like “sh.”
The Stroke and the Slash
Examples: ł ø ß
Some characters modify letters more dramatically. Polish ł (l with stroke) sounds like English “w.” Norwegian and Danish ø is its own vowel. German ß (eszett) represents a double-s sound — technically a ligature rather than a diacritic, but it lives in the same family of “special characters English doesn’t have.”
Why Diacritical Marks Matter
Three practical reasons to get them right:
Meaning changes. Año means “year” in Spanish; ano means something considerably less polite. Résumé is a document; resume is a verb. The marks aren’t cosmetic.
Names deserve respect. Typing Muller when someone’s name is Müller, or Pena for Peña, gets the name wrong. In professional communication, that matters.
Search and correctness. Search engines, databases, and autocorrect increasingly treat accented and unaccented versions as distinct. Writing café menu vs cafe menu can even surface different results.
How to Type Diacritical Marks
Now the practical part. Every method below is covered in depth in its own guide on this site — this is your map to all of them.
On Windows
- Alt codes — hold Alt and type a numeric code on the keypad: Alt + 0233 gives you é. Reliable everywhere. [Full Windows Alt codes list →]
- US International keyboard — the best long-term solution. Type an apostrophe then e to get é. [Setup guide →]
- Character Map — the built-in app for occasional use
On Mac
- Option key combinations — Option + e, then e produces é. The pattern is consistent across accent types. [Full Mac shortcuts guide →]
- Press and hold — hold any letter key and accent options pop up, just like on a phone
On Mobile
- Press and hold — on both iPhone and Android, hold a letter and slide to the accented version.
In Specific Apps
Microsoft Word, Google Docs, and Outlook each have their own built-in methods — symbol menus, Ctrl-key shortcuts, and autocorrect options.
The No-Memorization Option
If you’d rather not learn any shortcuts, our free tools do the work:
- Accent Character Finder — type a letter, see every accented version, click to copy
- Copy-and-Paste Accent Keyboard — a clickable keyboard of every character, organized by language
Frequently Asked Questions
Are diacritical marks the same as accents?
“Accent marks” is the everyday term; “diacritical marks” is the formal one. Technically, accents (acute, grave, circumflex) are one category of diacritics — the tilde, cedilla, and umlaut are diacritics but not accents. In casual usage the terms are interchangeable.
Does English have diacritical marks?
Natively, almost none — English dropped most of them centuries ago. But English borrows heavily, so café, jalapeño, façade, and naïve keep their marks in careful writing. We’ve covered this question in depth in [Does English Have Accent Marks? →]
Do capital letters keep their diacritics?
Yes. École and ÉCOLE are both correct in French. The old typewriter-era habit of dropping accents from capitals is considered incorrect today.
What’s the difference between ñ and n with a tilde?
In Spanish, nothing — and everything. Visually it’s an n with a tilde, but linguistically ñ is a separate letter with its own alphabet position and its own sound. Spanish dictionaries list ñ words in their own section.
The Bottom Line
Diacritical marks are small, but they carry real weight — changing sounds, meanings, and the correctness of names. The good news is that typing them is a solved problem: whether you prefer keyboard shortcuts, a dedicated layout, or a copy-and-paste tool, there’s a method that fits how you work. Pick the one that matches how often you need them, and those little marks stop being an obstacle.