To syllabicate is to separate a word into its syllables. There are rules that govern how words can be broken down. In Spanish syllabification is very important because several spelling rules depend on it, such as some accentuation rules; for example, you must place an accent over all esdrújula words, that is, those words that carry the phonetic sress over the one-before-last syllable, such as "máquina", "pásame", "América".

In this page you can enter a word and see how it is split into syllables.

To hyphenate is to decide at what points a word can be split with a hyphen at the end of a line where it does not fit in complete. Hyphenation is based in syllabification and often is the same thing; however, there are many cases where they differ because of aesthetic reasons or to make reading easier.

In this page you can enter a Spanish word and see how it is hyphenated.

Below you will find examples where syllabification is different to hyphenation:

• Take the word "bienintencionado" and observe the difference its hyphenation "bien-in-ten-cio-na-do" and its syllabification "bie-nin-ten-cio-na-do"; the second form is the correct way to split it into syllables but it's not a good way to break the word at the end of a line. silabear pero no resultaría una buena forma de dividir la palabra al final de un renglón.
• With the word "bioética" note the difference between its hyphenation "bio-éti-ca" and its syllabification "bioé-ti-ca"; the second form is the right way to split it into syllables but would not result in a good way to break the word at the end of a line.
• The word "enhorabuena" is hyphenated as "en-hora-bue-na" but its syllables are "en-ho-ra-bue-na".
• The word "vehemente" is hyphenated as "vehe-men-te" but its syllables are "ve-he-men-te".