How is punctuation in spanish different from english

Where did you get that idea? Leave a Reply Cancel reply Enter your comment here Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:. Email required Address never made public. Name required. Follow Following. Learn Englizz! Join 57 other followers. Sign me up. Already have a WordPress. Log in now. Review a complete interactive transcript under the Dialogue tab, and find words and phrases listed under Vocab.

The period is the punctuation mark we use in order to tell the reader he or she needs to make a long pause. Generally speaking, periods come at the end of the 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. The boy is playing in the park. You convey your message and close it with a period. Cool and simple. Everybody knows that, I am sure. What maybe not everybody knows is that there are three important different kinds of periods in Spanish: the punto y seguido , the punto y aparte and the punto final.

We use a punto y seguido when we keep on writing after that period without starting a new paragraph. All the periods inside a paragraph except for the last one are puntos y seguido. For the sake of space, the following examples are not whole paragraphs but pairs of sentences together.

The periods separating each pair of sentences is a punto y seguido :. Me voy a la cama. I am sleepy. I am going to bed. He comprado un coche. El coche es rojo. I have bought a car. The car is red. We use a punto y aparte when we want to start a new paragraph.

Typically, with the punto y aparte we mark a change of topic or an idea not directly related to the previous one:. Finally, a punto final is any period that closes a single isolated sentence or closes the whole writing. I know it may seem a bit weird to have a specific name for something that only occurs once in a chapter, essay or composition, but since we have it, why not boast about it?

Take the closest book you have. Open it and have a look at the last sentence of the last paragraph of the last page. There will probably be a period. There you have your example of a punto final. The uses of the comma in Spanish and English are very similar. We mainly use it to make shorter pauses in a sentence, separate items on a list or add explanatory phrases:.

Mis colores favoritos son el rojo, el amarillo y el verde. My favorite colors are red, yellow and green. My brother, who is a doctor, lives in Barcelona. However, there are a couple of differences between the use of the comma in American English and Spanish.

Have a look:. When writing quotation marks more on those later in this post , add the comma after them in Spanish, but include the comma before them in American English:. You learned all of them just by reading this single blog post. Imagine what you could do, if you were to engage in real life conversations with native Spanish speaker teachers. Learn to write and speak like a pro by signing up for a free class! Your email address will not be published. January 9, by Luis F.

Dominguez Spanish Grammar 0 comments. Author Recent Posts. Follow me. Luis F. Freelance Writer at Homeschool Spanish Academy. Latest posts by Luis F. Dominguez see all. Read More. How Are You? Spanish Greetings February 6, When starting a letter with the equivalent of Dear Mr Smith , a colon must be used:.

The use of the comma is similar in Spanish and English usage. But as in other European languages, there is an important difference in its use in numbers and decimals.

Mexico follows the American use of the point and comma in numbers. Spanish Punctuation As a general rule the punctuation of Spanish and English is very similar. Abbreviations Spanish, like English, uses many abbreviations.