English Spanish

Mark Use Example

Full Stop A full stop should always be used to end a Punto The period is the punctuation mark we use in order to
sentence. The full stop indicates that a point tell the reader he or she needs to make a long pause.
has been made and that you are about to move Generally speaking, periods come at the end of the
on to further explanations or a related point. sentence (as long as it is not a question or an
exclamation) and they tell us the main idea of the
sentence has been conveyed and we can make a pause.
Commas Comas (,) are used to separate three or more Coma The uses of the comma in Spanish and English are very
words, phrases or clauses(sentences parts) in a similar.
series.
Commas indicate that introductory words
and phrases moved from the end of the
sentences.
Quotation Quotation(``'') marks show the beginning and Signo de
marks end of quotation or title of short work.When The question mark is one of the easiest-to-use
interrogación
citing, the quotation and punctuation rules.
punctuation marks because it is universally used to
Do not use quotation marks around paraphrase
or summary. close questions.

The only thing you need to remember and bear in mind

is that in Spanish you need to use an inverted
question mark
Parentheses Parentheses (( ) )set off elements within
sentence that are related to the sentence but
nonessential.
When parentheses are used to enclose an
independent sentence, the end punctuation
belongs inside the parentheses.
Apostrophes Apostrophes (`) show possession and also
indicate where a letter has been omitted to
form a contraction.
Do not use an apostrophe with possessive
personal pronouns.
Hyphens Hyphens (-) are used to form compound words
or join word units. They are also used to join
prefixes, suffixes,and letters to words.
Colons Colons (:) follow independent clauses and call
attention to the information that comes after.
Try to never use a colon after a verb that
directly introduces a list.
Dashes Dashes ( — ) connect groups of words to other
groups of words to emphasize a point. Usually,
Paréntesis
Parentheses are another punctuation mark you use
practically in the same way in Spanish as in English.
Parentheses can be used for many different purposes,
but there is always one thing in common: you will
always need an opening parenthesis and a closing one.
Comillas Even though there are different kinds of quotes, almost
every language has a preference and will make use
españolas
of one type more often than the others.
Signo de We have exactly the same situation when it comes to
the exclamation point. We use it for the same purpose
exclamación
both in Spanish and English, but we need to add
exclamation points at the beginning of every
exclamation.
Dos puntos As it happened with the comma, the use of the colon in
Spanish and English is pretty much the same.
Guión y raya I have a confession to make: I used to get lost every
time I had to use the hyphen and the em-dash because,
 the dash separates words in the middle or at
the end of a sentence.
Semicolon Semicolons (;) separate clauses or phrases that
are related and that receive equal emphasis.
for me, they have always been one and the same thing,
except one is longer than the other.
Punto y coma I have always loved that the semicolon is called punto
y coma in Spanish, because you actually have to write
a period and a comma to produce a semicolon.