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Los mensajes son nuevos, ¡contestadlos!

Los mensajes son nuevos, ¡contestadlos!
The messages are new, answer them!
From Lesson 61:Affirmative commands (tú, vosotros)·Spanish (Spain)

Questions & Answers about Los mensajes son nuevos, ¡contestadlos!

Why does the command end in -d?
This is the vosotros (plural informal 'you' in Spain) command form of contestar (to answer). To make an affirmative vosotros command, you just take the infinitive, drop the final -r, and replace it with a -d. So, contestar becomes contestad.
Why is los attached to the end of contestad?
When you use an affirmative command (telling someone to do something), you must attach pronouns directly to the end of the verb. Here, los means 'them', making the single word contestadlos (answer them).
How do I know to use los instead of another pronoun?
Los refers back to los mensajes (the messages). Because mensajes is a masculine, plural noun, we need the matching masculine plural pronoun los.
Attaching pronouns to commands often adds a written accent mark. Why doesn't contestadlos have one?
You only add an accent mark to keep the original stress of the verb. The command contestad stresses the last syllable (-tad). When we add -los, the word becomes contestadlos. In Spanish, words ending in -s naturally stress the second-to-last syllable. Since that is exactly where the stress needs to be (-tad-), no written accent is needed!

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