accents

In lesson 4.1, the phrase “solo cuesta” appears with SOLO having and accent on the first O, but also without. Which is correct?

Sólo is largely going away. 

For historical context, before 2010 solo meant alone (adj) and sólo mean only (adv). But in 2010 Spanish Royal Academy (RAE) removed the accent and now you have to use context. BTW, the RAE is the body who decides what is “correct” Spanish.

Thank you Scott, appreciate your reply!

Cheers

This had been throwing me on the writing parts…because other spanish instructional material I had seen had never put an accent on solo.

But this means that the material in rocket languages has not been updated in 14 years.

They have updated the material with new audio. I can't speak to the written content, but I asked about another RAE issue (can't remember which but not solo) and the answer was, “It is still widely used, so we include it both ways.” I have never seen sólo, so not sure it truly applies here, but sharing what I heard from them over 1 year ago.

¡Hola a todos!

This is a really interesting discussion! Just jumping in on behalf of Rocket to clarify what we do in our Rocket Spanish course.

Although Scott_C is completely correct that the RAE (Real Academia Española) does now suggest removing the accent on sólo “only” because it is not necessary from a pronunciation standpoint, we maintain the original spelling in our course. This is because there are sometimes cases where it can easily be confused with solo “alone” spelled without an accent. Of course, when you write and communicate in Spanish yourself, you are welcome to use either; it is strictly for learning purposes that we keep the original spelling in our course.

Therefore, this was an error in the audio transcript in lesson 4.1 Shopping, in which sólo means “only” and should be spelled with an accent. This has now been addressed, so next time you go into the lesson, you should see the correct spelling.

I hope this helps! 

¡Saludos!

Indy