Writing with confidence in a foreign language often requires more than just a knowledge of vocabulary and phrasing. Appropriate use of a language's writing conventions, such as use of capital letters and common abbreviations, will help give your writing greater fluency and a more natural feel.
~ Question/Exclamation Marks
Spanish questions begin with an inverted question mark. This is also true for sentences using an exclamation mark. You can reproduce these on your keyboard by pressing the number lock button, then ALT + 168 for � and ALT + 173 gives you �.
~ Quotation Marks
To quote someone word for word, use of double angle brackets is common: << >>.
~ Direct Speech
Long dashes indicate dialogue in a Spanish text:
-- �Viste el hombrazo con las gafas? -- le pregunt�.
-- S�.
~ Comma/Points
Spanish uses points to indicate a number in the thousands: 1.000 (1,000 in UK English).
A comma is used in Spanish to show a decimal: 3,4 (3.4 in UK and US English).
~ Colon
Spanish uses the colon at the beginning of a letter, in place of the British comma:
Estimado Sr Brown: (Dear Mr Brown,)
~ Capital letters
Proper names in Spanish are written (as in English) with a capital letter: Madrid, Juan.
However, there are several instances where in Spanish no capital letter is used. For example, when writing about a country's inhabitants or languages, no capital is used: una francesa, franc�s, espa�ol. Also nouns and adjectives derived from schools of thoughts or ideological movements: maoismo, cristiandad.
Weekdays and months of the year are also written without a capital: jueves, abril.
~ Abbreviations
Spanish texts use a number of abbreviations, the most common being: p. ej. (por ejemplo). There are also acronyms, including: AVE (A high-speed train) and OTAN, the Spanish for Nato.
