Language/Spanish/Vocabulary/Punctuation

The rules for writing in Spanish punctuation marks are:

Coma / Comma

There is no space between the word and comma, a space after the comma, except for the decimal point (2,5).

• Example: El perro, el gato.

• Example: Existen 100.000.000 ants por cada ser humano = There are 100,000,000 hormigas for every human.

Punto / Period

There is no space between the word and the point, after a space, except for the point numbers (10 457).

• Example: El perro ladra. La vaca muge.

Punto y Coma / semicolon: no space between the word and the semicolon and a space after.

• Example: El gato es blanco, el perro es negro.

Dos puntos/Two points

There is no space between the word and the colon, a space after.

• Example: La sopa contiene: tomates y patatas

Signos de interrogación/exclamación - interrogation/ exclamation signs

In Spanish these signs are required at the beginning and the end of the sentence. They are placed right next to the first and last word of the sentence, with no space. The previous words and the words are separated by a space. If the question mark / exclamation is followed by another punctuation mark, there is no space between.

• Example: :¡Juan!, ¿son ya las siete?; es muy tarde.

The last question/exclamation sign is equivalent to a period when it is at the end of the sentence.

• Example: No he tenido suerte. ¡Qué le voy a hacer! Otra vez la tendré..

After the last question/exclamation mark, we can write any punctuation sign except the period. The following sentence must start with a lowercase letter.

• Example: ¿Cómo fue la fiesta?, a mi me hubiera gustado participar.