Just like the umlaut (those two dots over some vowels) in German and the tilde (the squiggly line over the letter n) in Spanish, Italian has a couple of letter markings that don’t exist in English, namely accents. Though tiny in size, these markings pack a punch as far as pronunciation—and, at times, meaning—so don’t underestimate their importance. 

Luckily for the language learner, the use of accent marks is pretty straightforward, so they’re not as hard as you may think to master. Read on to learn more about the grave and acute accents and how to use them correctly.