Spanish Puntuation

Spanish Puntuation

1. Comma (,): Use a comma to separate words or items in a list. Example: She has two dogs, three cats, one bird, and five fish in her house. Rule: Use a comma to separate a city from its state. Example: I am from East Lansing, Michigan. Rule: Use a comma to separate the day of the month from the year. Example: He was born on August 4th, 1990. Rule: Use a comma to separate two adjectives (describing words) when the word and can be inserted between them.

2. Period (.) Rule: Use at the end of a complete sentence. Rule: Use at the end of an indirect question. Example: I went to the store for groceries. Example: He asked where the milk was.

3. Question Mark (?) Rule: Use a question mark only after a direct question. Example: Will you come over after school?

4. Exclamation Point (!) Rule: Use the exclamation point to show emphasis or excitement. Example: Summer is in three months!

5. Quotation Marks ("") Rule: Use quotation marks to set off a direct quotation. Rule: Periods and commas always go inside quotation marks Example: “I don’t want to go to school today,” Alan said.

6. Colon Rule: Use the colon after a complete sentence to introduce a list of items. Rule: Use the colon after the greeting of the person’s name in a business letter. Example: On my trip I will bring: clothes, a pillow, a sleeping bag, a toothbrush, and my teddy bear.

7. Parenthesis Rule: Use parenthesis to enclose words or figures that clarify or are used as an aside. Example: He received one hundred and fifty points (150)on his math project.

8. Apostrophe Rule: Use the apostrophe when combining two words. It is always placed in the spot where the letter(s) have been removed. Rule: Use the apostrophe to show possession. Place the apostrophe before the s. Example: She’s (she is) only allowed candy on Friday.

9. Semicolon A mark of punctuation ( ; ) used to connect independent clauses and show a closer relationship than a period does. Example:"Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember.“

10. Dash A mark of punctuation (—), technically known as an em dash, used to set off a word or phrase after an independent clause or to set off words, phrases, or clauses that interrupt a sentence. (!)Don't confuse the dash (—) with the hyphen (-). Example:"A hypocrite is a person who—but who isn't?"

11. Hyphen A short horizontal mark of punctuation ( - ) used between the parts of a compound word or name or between the syllables of a word when divided at the end of a line. (!)Don't confuse the hyphen (-) with the dash (—). Example: "I'm part of the blame-America-last crowd."

12. Bullet In typography, a bullet ( • ) is a typographical symbol or glyph used to introduce items in a list. For example: • Item 1

13. Ellipsis (plural ellipses; from the Ancient Greek: ἔλλειψις, élleipsis, "omission" or "falling short") is a series of dots that usually indicates an intentional omission of a word, sentence, or whole section from a text without altering its original meaning. Depending on their context and placement in a sentence, ellipses can also indicate an unfinished thought, a leading statement, a slight pause, or a nervous or awkward silence. Aposiopesis is the use of an ellipsis to trail off into silence—for example: "But I thought he was . . ."

14. The slash (/) is a sign used as a punctuation mark and for various other purposes. It is often called a forward slash, a retronym used to distinguish it from the backslash (\). It has many other names. Example: http://www.really-learn-english.com/esl-ebooks.html

15. Square barckets [ ] — square brackets, closed brackets, hard brackets, or brackets (US) Example: The two teams in the finals of the first FIFA Football World Cup were both from South America [Uruguay and Argentina].

16. also called angle quotes, Latin quotation marks, or French quotation marks, are polylines pointed like arrows (« or »), sometimes forming a complementary set of punctuation marks used as a form of quotation mark.