Common Marks of Punctuation

English

Punctuation Mark

Spanish

apostrophe ' apóstrofo
asterisk * asterisco
braces { } corchetes
brackets [ ] paréntesis cuadrados (angulares)
colon : dos puntos
comma , coma
dash ¾ raya
diaeresis (umlaut) ¨ diéresis (or crema)
  ¡ principio de exclamación
exclamation point ! fin de exclamación
hyphen - guión
parentheses ( ) paréntesis
period . punto
  ¿ principio de interrogación
question mark ? fin de interrogación
quotation marks " " comillas
semicolon ; punto y coma
suspension points (ellipses) ... puntos suspensivos

The inverted question mark ¿ (principio de interrogación) must always appear in a sentence that asks a question.  However, it does not always appear at the beginning of the sentence.  It should be placed at the point in the sentence where the question begins.

Si lo hubieras sabido, ¿habrías firmado el documento?
    If you had known, would you have signed the document?

In this sentence the clause " would you have signed the document", contains the question so the inverted question mark ¿, appears here.

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