vowel stems & other things

Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo! I am attempting to learn Quenya, even trying to master the tengwar, if that is the right word, and I am puzzled by a few things so I thought this would be a good place to ask:

(1) There are two stems for vowels, long and short, but I don't know when to use either of them, and when to just have the vowel as a diacritical over or under the consonant.

(2) I am not sure when to use the letter rómen and when to use óre.

(3) I don't know the distinction between the regular and what look like inverted versions of letters, e.g. silme and the one that corresponds to Z (forgetting the name for it).

I'm sure there are many other things I do not yet understand, since I have only really just begun here, but these are tripping me up. Hanta le!

Hello Alex,

I am assuming you are referring to writing with Tengwar in Quenya mode.

(1) The default in Quenya mode is that the tehtar (the vowel signs used as diacritics) are placed over the preceding consonant tengwa. When there is no preceding consonant tengwa - for instance at the start of the word (e.g. anna), or if the preceding letter is also a vowel, e.g. ea - then the appropriate vowel stem is used.

(2) Rómen is used in between two vowels, or at the start of the word. Óre is used if is before a consonant, or at the end of the word.

(3) It's mostly practical - the inverted variants are mostly used when you need to put a tehta over them, the normal variants have less room above them

Thank you so much, Tamas! On the 1st point, re vowels, there are two different stems (or whatever they are called, I forget), one long and one short. When does one use the shorter one and the longer one?

That one is simple: the short stem is used for short vowels (like the ones at the start of anna, orta, umbar etc.), and the long stem for long vowels (e.g. óre, únat etc.).