Word symbols for spanish

Have you ever come across weird symbols in Spanish? Perhaps you don’t know what they mean or how to write them?

Well, you’re not alone. Pretty much every Spanish student has gone through the same situation during their learning process. Part of learning Spanish is discovering these special characters and finding out how to use them. 

Today, we’ll discuss why you need to learn the Spanish punctuation rules; discover the most commonly used punctuation marks in Spanish; find out how to type the Spanish special characters; and see what other symbols in Spanish exist. 

Why Learn to Use Punctuation Marks and Other Symbols in Spanish?

Although some “international” punctuation marks and special characters are used and recognized in different languages, every language has its own punctuation rules and unique symbols. Learning them is a crucial part of your language acquisition process, as they are vital to developing your writing skills in the new language. 

These unique punctuation marks and other symbols in Spanish generally work in similar ways to how they behave in English, which make it easier to understand their use. Some slight variations and different special characters are the main issues to focus on, and that’s what we’ll do in the following sections. 

How to Use Punctuation Marks in Spanish

The correct use of punctuation marks and other symbols in Spanish is a sign of advanced writing and reading skills. These special characters tell you when to pause, how to adapt the tone of your voice, and other important information. 

A hidden benefit of learning punctuation rules in Spanish is that by mastering them, you’ll start thinking more about the structure of your sentences and the parts of speech you’ll use with them. In other words, you’ll become more “grammar conscious,” and your Spanish will improve as a result. 

Punto – Period 

The “period” is one of the symbols in Spanish that works just like in English, only it’s called by slightly different names. 

To explain the three types of periods in Spanish, we’ll use the following passage:

El español es un idioma popular. No solo se habla en Latinoamérica, sino también en muchas partes de Estados Unidos. (punto y aparte after “Estados Unidos”)

Sin embargo, es importante recordar que existen diferentes maneras de hablar el español. 

Spanish is a popular language. It’s not only spoken in Latin America, but also in many parts of the United States. 

However, it’s important to remember that there are different ways to speak Spanish. 

1. Punto y seguido

Translated literally, this means “period and continue.” It’s the one you use when you continue writing in the same paragraph after the period. Every time you see a period in the middle of a paragraph, it’s a punto y seguido. 

For example, there is a punto y seguido after the word popular at the end of the first sentence in the passage.

2. Punto y aparte

The “period and aside” is the period you use to end a paragraph. After using this period, you have to start a new idea in a new paragraph. 

A punto y aparte comes after Estados Unidos in the passage.

3. Punto y final

The “final period” is the period you use to end a chapter, article, or letter. You use punto y final when you have finished writing. 

In the passage, the punto final comes at the end, after the word español.

In all cases, the Spanish punto plays the same role as the English period. It simply tells the reader to make a long pause. 

Coma – Comma

The comma indicates a brief pause to be made within a sentence. Its use in Spanish has three key differences to how it’s used in English. 

1. In Spanish, we don’t use the Oxford Comma. This means that when you’re listing a series of things, you don’t write a comma before the word y (“and”).

Compré pan, leche y tortillas. 

I bought bread, milk, and tortillas. 

2. When you use quotation marks in English, and need to add a comma after them, you add the comma before the last quotation mark. In Spanish, you add it after the last quotation mark. 

“Te amo”, le dijo con una sonrisa en la cara. 

“I love you,” he said with a smile on his face. 

3. In Spain, people use the periods and commas in numbers in the opposite way as in Latin American and the United States. They use periods for numbers in the thousands and millions and a comma as a decimal point. 

1.987.654,32 (Spain and Europe)

1,987,654.32 (Latin America and U.S.)

Punto y Coma – Semicolon

The semicolon is formed by a period and a comma, hence its name in Spanish. It indicates a longer pause than a comma, but a shorter one than a period. It’s mostly used to separate different ideas within a single sentence, in complex lists, and before conjunctions and transition words. 

En la reunión se discutirán los avances en el programa de pagos automáticos; las nuevas ideas de producto; los ganadores del premio de puntualidad y las propuestas para la cena de Navidad. 

At the meeting, we’ll discuss the automatic payments program advances; the new product ideas; the winners of the attendance; and punctuality prize and the proposals for the Christmas party.

Dos Puntos – Colon

Just as in English, los dos puntos are used to indicate that an explanation, a list, a numeration, or a quote is coming next. Also, use a colon after the initial greeting in a business letter or email. 

Los signos de puntuación son los siguientes: el punto, la coma, el punto y coma, etc.

The punctuation marks are as follows: period, comma, semicolon, etc. 

Estimados padres de familia: 

Dear Parents: 

Puntos Suspensivos – Ellipsis

This is one of the symbols in Spanish that works exactly the same as in English. We use puntos suspensivos to express suspense, create expectation, or indicate hesitation. You can also use it to indicate an omission or represent a trailing off of thought. 

Si tan solo… bueno, ya no importa. 

If only… well, it doesn’t matter anymore. 

Signos de Interrogación – Question Mark

You use the question mark in Spanish in exactly the same situations as in English, with the only difference being that in Spanish you need to add a signo de interrogación at the beginning of the question. This symbol doesn’t exist in English, but it’s basically an upside down question mark. 

¿Cómo te llamas?

What’s your name?

¿De dónde eres?

Where are you from?

Signos de Exclamación – Exclamation Point

Same thing with question marks. You need to add an upside down exclamation point to the start of the exclamation sentence.

¡Me gané la lotería!

I won the lottery!

¡Conseguí el trabajo!

I got the job!

Paréntesis – Parentheses

These symbols in Spanish also work exactly the same as in English. You use parentheses to clarify an idea aside from the main point, to add abbreviations or their meaning, and to add places and dates. 

La Organización de las Naciones Unidas (ONU) celebró su Asamblea General. 

The UN (United Nations) celebrated its General Assembly. 

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) fue un gran poeta chileno. 

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) was an outstanding Chilean poet.

Comillas – Quotation Marks

Use the quotation marks to reproduce textual quotes, to indicate that a word or expression is being used ironically or that it comes from another language, and to quote titles of movies, books, articles, etc. In Spanish, the punctuation mark goes outside the quotation marks, unlike in American English.

La llamada “Oxford comma” no se usa en español. 

The so-called Oxford comma is not used in Spanish. 

El presidente señaló que la economía está “mejor que nunca”.

The president said that the economy is “better than ever.”

Guion Largo o Raya – Em Dash

The raya is used to clarify something, in a similar way to parentheses. It can also be used to indicate each person’s speech in a dialogue. 

— Este libro es mío.—dijo María con calma. 

— Lo siento, no lo sabía.—respondió Carlos. 

“This is my book,” said María calmly. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” answered Carlos. 

Guion Corto – Hyphen

Shorter than the raya (corto means “short”), this guion is used to unite words to form a complex term and to serve as a link between two numbers that form an interval. A good way to differentiate between both guiones is to remember that we use the raya to “separate” and the guion corto to “unite.”

Post-modernidad

Post-modernity

Mexico-americano

Mexican-American

How to Use Special Characters in Spanish

When learning about punctuation marks, special characters and other symbols in Spanish, you discover the challenge involved in typing them on an electronic device. 

At the beginning of the computer age, this was a real challenge. Nowadays, it’s still an issue but not as complicated as it used to be. If you want to be able to type anything in Spanish, I recommend reading this post.

Acentos – Accent Marks

The accent marks are the most common special characters and symbols in Spanish that you need to learn. We write them on top of vowels to mark where a word is stressed.

Árbol

Tree

México

México

País

Country

Avión

Airplane

Número

Number 

Diéresis – Umlaut

In Spanish, you only use the umlaut when you have a gue or gui syllable and you want to include the sound of the letter u. In other words, if you don’t add the umlaut, that u between the g and the e or i, would be silent. 

Pingüino

Penguin

Bilingüe 

Bilingual

Ñ, ñ

This letter doesn’t exist in English, but it’s important in Spanish. Its sound is similar to the “ny” sound of an English word such as “canyon.”  

Español 

Spanish

Niño

Boy

How to Use Other Symbols in Spanish

Besides the special characters mentioned above, there are other symbols in Spanish that you need to master. These symbols are mostly related to money or the internet and are pretty much the same as in English. 

I’m talking about symbols such as $, €, #, @, *, and /. In all these cases, their use in Spanish is exactly the same as in English, although the way to type them can vary depending on your keyboard settings. 

¿Quién Hablará con el Niño Bilingüe?

Who will talk with the bilingual boy? That question may not make a lot of sense to you, but please notice how many of the new punctuation marks, special characters, and other symbols in Spanish it includes. 

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!

Learning Spanish? Check out our latest posts!

Symbols and Alt codes

Shortenings

Some Spanish words may be shortened when they are written. There are various ways of shortening a single word, or even a group of words, in Spanish. These are the most common ways:

Abbreviations

In Spanish, standard abreviaturas(abbreviations) of certain words are used in some contexts.

They are normally written with lowercase letters, unless the shortened form is capitalized. For example: ed.(ed.) that stands for edición(edition), or Fdez.that stands for Fernández(Fernandez).

They usually end with a period, but a few of them use a slash instead. For example: c.(c.) that stands for centavo(cent), or c/(St.) that stands for calle(street).

In abbreviations of groups of words, each shortened element gets a period. For example: a. de C.(BC) that stands for antes de Cristo(before Christ).

An abbreviation must be formed with the first letter of the shortened word, and it may include up to four more letters from the word. For example: D.that stands for don(Mr.), Dr.(Dr.) that stands for doctor(doctor), Dña.that stands for doña(Ms., Mrs.), dpto.(dept.) that stands for departamento(department), or dupdo.that stands for duplicado(copy, duplicate).

If the abbreviation is formed with the first few letters of the word, it must end in a consonant rather than a vowel. For example: cap.(ch.) that stands for capítulo(chapter).

Symbols

Símbolos(symbols) are internationally accepted standard abbreviations of units of measure, chemical elements, currencies, points of the compass, etc. For example: hathat stands for hectárea(hectare), Agthat stands for plata(silver), EURthat stands for euro(euro), Sthat stands for sur(south).

Symbols may begin with a lowercase or uppercase letter. For example, minthat stands for minuto(minute), or Mgthat stands for magnesio(magnesium).

In Spanish, symbols don’t end with a period or any other punctuation mark or sign. This makes them different from ordinary abbreviations. Compare, for example, sthe symbol for segundo(second) with s.(c.), the abbreviation of siglo(century).

Just like abbreviations, symbols aren’t pronounced as they are written. The full word is uttered instead.

Finally, like abbreviations, symbols can stand for a single word or a group of words. For example: ºCstands for grado centígradoor grado Celsius(degree centigrade, degree Celsius).

Acronyms

Acronyms are the abbreviated form of a group of words. An acronym is formed with the initials of those words. Many of them are proper nouns, such as names of institutions or corporations, for example: UNAMwhich stands for Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. However, sometimes acronyms are common nouns, for example: ONG(NGO) that stands for organización no gubernamental(non-governmental organization).

In Spanish, if the acronym cannot be read as a word and has to be spelled out, it is called a sigla, for example, FMI(IMF) that stands for Fondo Monetario Internacional(International Monetary Fund). FMI is pronounced /éfe-éme-í/.

If the acronym can actually be read as a word, it is called an acrónimo. For example: OTAN(NATO) which stands for Organización del Tratado del Atlántico Norte(North Atlantic Treaty Organization). OTAN is pronounced /ótan/ or /otán/.

Acronyms are written with uppercase letters, no spaces, and no periods. For example: UCI(ICU), which stands for unidad de cuidados intensivos(intensive care unit) or UNICEF, which stands for United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund.

When Spanish acronyms can be read as normal words, they sometimes become ordinary words! In that case, they are written with lowercase letters. One example is sida(AIDS), which comes from the acronym of síndrome de inmunodeficiencia adquirida(acquired immunodeficiency syndrome). Note that if they are proper nouns, they must be capitalized. For example, you may see Unicefwritten with just a capital U instead of the form with all capital letters.

Apocopes

An apócope(apocope) is an alternative shortened form of a word that is used in certain grammatical contexts. For example, the adjective primeris used instead of primero(first) before masculine singular nouns.

Apocopes are formed through the loss of one or more letters at the end of the word. For example, the adjective terceris used instead of tercero(third) before masculine singular nouns, and the adjective sanis used instead of santo(Saint) before names of male saints, except Santo Domingoand Santo Tomás.

A special type of apocope called an acortamientooccurs when one or more syllables are dropped from the word. In this case, the use of the shortened form is not limited to specific grammatical contexts like the others. It is simply an informal or colloquial replacement for the full form. This is most often heard in speech. For example, micro(mike) is used colloquially instead of micrófono(microphone), and subteis used informally in Argentina instead of subterráneo(subway).

Blends

Some words in Spanish are what linguists call compuestos(blends). These are words formed by the combination of two or more words that form an expression, a set phrase, or a term. For example, the term fin de semana(weekend) is often shortened in colloquial Spanish to finde.

Sometimes these shortened forms are created by dropping full words. We can see this in words like finde, where the word semana is dropped altogether. However, blends may also consist in the dropping of syllables. One example is the word porfa, which is an informal shortening of por favor(please).

Occasionally, one or more letters or sounds may change, as in porfi(please), a variant of porfa.

Contractions Without an Apostrophe

In Spanish, a contracción(contraction) is a word derived from the combination of two words.

There are only two Spanish contractions that are written sin apóstrofo(without an apostrophe). These are: al, formed by the combination of the preposition aand the article el, and del, which comes from the combination of the preposition deand the article el.

These two contractions are always used, both in writing and pronunciation, whenever the two words appear together. There is only one exception in writing, which occurs when the article is capitalized. For example, the contraction al is not used when writing a phrase like ir a El Cairo(go to Cairo), although native speakers actually pronounce the contraction when uttering the phrase, /iɾ al káiɾo/.

Contractions With an Apostrophe

In informal Spanish, the dropping of sounds at the end of one word and the beginning of the next word is reflected in writing with an apostrophe. For example, it is quite common in colloquial speech to pronounce the sequence para elas pal, which you may see written as pa’l.

Nicknames

In informal Spanish, many names have an alternative shortened form, such as Cris(Chris), which stands for Cristina(Christine), or Edu(Ed, Ted), which stands for Eduardo(Edward).

Sometimes, these alternative forms involve not just shortening the full form, but also altering its spelling. This happens with Merche, which stands for Mercedes. At times, the alternative form of a name is completely different. For example, the standard nickname for José(Joseph) is Pepe(Joe).

Examples

Here’s a table containing some common shortenings, their full forms, and their translations:

Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary

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Below are examples and explanations for words, phrases, acronyms, numbers, punctuation, capitalization, symbols, and more used in Spanish grammar.

• Abbreviations, Acronyms and Em Dash
• Spanish Language Capitalization
• Spanish Language Dates & Numbers
• Spanish Language Punctuation
• Spanish Language Diacritics and HTML Code

Abbreviations, Acronyms and Em Dash

Abbreviations

1. Incorrect Use: EE UU

• Correct Use: EE. UU. (Estados Unidos)

1. Incorrect Use: f.f. c.c.

• Correct Use: FF. CC. (ferrocarriles)

Plural form of compound words, organization names or some countries are made by using double letters, as in ferrocarriles (FF. CC.) and Estados Unidos (EE. UU.).

Acronyms

1. Incorrect Use: CD–ROM

• Correct Use: CD–ROM (Compact Disk–Read Only Memory)

1. Incorrect Use: E.U.A.

• Correct Use: EUA

1. Incorrect Use: O.N.U.

• Correct Use: ONU

While periods are used in abbreviations of complex names (two or more words) to indicate different words, acronyms (siglas en español) do not use periods between the words.

Pluralization of Acronyms

Acronyms don’t add an “s” to denote plural when preceded by articles or words that denote plural, i.e. “los CD,” “muchas ONG.” However, in cases where there are no modifiers that denote plural, it may be acceptable to pluralize acronyms as in English: CDs, DVDs, PCs, ONGs. For example: “Reproducir DVDs en el equipo.”

Em Dash (—)

It is mainly used to indicate incidental sentences and speech openings in dialogues.

Incorrect Use

Son dos ciudades — Roma y Venecia

La traducción — Una ciencia empírica

Come—dijo ella—o llegaremos tarde

Me temo –comentó Juan- que da igual OR Me temo –comentó Juan–que da igual

Correct Use (or Lack of Use)

Son dos ciudades: Roma y Venecia

La traducción, una ciencia empírica

Come —dijo ella— o llegaremos tarde

Me temo —comentó Juan— que da igual

Spanish Language Capitalization

Titles in Spanish do not follow the capitalization style of the English language:

• Fraudes de trabajo en el hogar
• Work-at-Home Schemes

Do NOT Capitalize

Days of the week and months

• In Spanish the days of the week and months of the year are written in lower case unless they are the first word in a sentence.

Languages and nationalities

• Follow the same guidelines as days of the week and months.

Words in parentheses

Don’t capitalize unless the text in parentheses is an acronym. Examples:

• TC (tomografía computada)
• Red Mundial para la Búsqueda de Niños Desaparecidos (en inglés)
• Culebrilla (herpes zoster)

Do Capitalize

First Word of a Title

• Tipos de asistencia financiera para la universidad.

Names of People or Places (Proper Nouns)

• Enfermedad de Still del adulto
• Evite problemas en las aduanas cuando regresa a los Estados Unidos
• Organización Internacional del Trabajo

First Word After a Colon (:)

• When it is a quote (between quotations marks or not), or a list in several paragraphs, each one following a number or a letter

First Word After an Em (—) Dash

• Enfermedad del corazón —Prevención

First Word After a Forward Slash (/)

• Impuestos/Tributación
• Desvío de las arterias coronarias/Angioplastia

Dates & Numbers

Dates

In Spanish, dates are expressed in this order: day, month, year (DDMMYYYY).

26 de octubre de 2004

26 octubre 2004

26/10/04

We recommend using the first two forms in the United States to avoid confusion with the American mode for reflecting dates.

Numbers

The North American Academy of Spanish Language (www.anle.us), acting under the GSA-ANLE Agreement (PDF, 214 KB, 4 pages), recommends that the notation for decimals and fractions in Spanish texts published in the United States follow the American model. Nine Latin American countries also follow this model. The decision was based on the nomenclature used in the United States by banks, financial documents, commerce and the media.

Correct use in USA: $1,276.50

Incorrect use in USA: $1.276,59

Ordinal numbers

Commonly used:

Abbreviated ordinal numbers: 1ro. or 1º, 2do. or 2º, 3ro. or 3º…

Feminine gender case: 1ra. or 1ª, 2da. o 2ª, 3ra o 3ª …

Academic Spanish:

Abbreviated ordinal numbers: 1.º, 2.º, 3.º… 25.º… 100.º

Feminine gender case: 1.ª, 2.ª, 3.ª … 25.ª … 100.ª

Billions and Trillions

Much has been debated about these two terms and how to translate them into Spanish in the United States. To avoid confusion for Spanish speakers in the United States, a literal translation from English is recommended.

Translation in the United States

Billion = Billón (1,000,000,000)

Trillion = Trillón (1,000,000,000,000)

Translation for other countries or International Spanish

Billion (US English) = Mil millones (unidad seguida de nueve ceros)

Trillion (US English) = Billón (unidad seguida de doce ceros)

Meaning of these terms in the Diccionario de la Real Academia Española (DRAE)

Billón = Un millón de millones, que se expresa por la unidad seguida de doce ceros. (DRAE)

Trillón = Un millón de billones, que se expresa por la unidad seguida de 18 ceros. (DRAE)

Punctuation

Exclamation and Question Marks

In Spanish, exclamation and question marks open and close the desired phrase. The opening ones are inverted (¡) (¿) and the closing ones are the same as in English: (!) and (?):

• ¡Hágalo en línea!
• ¿Cómo puedo hacerme ciudadano estadounidense?

Punctuation marks are written outside of quotation marks, parenthesis and dashes.

• Juventud, divino tesoro, ¡ya te vas para no volver!
• El médico dijo: “La revisión se canceló; era previsible por el temor del paciente. Sin embargo, es probable que la cancelación no sea definitiva”; acto seguido, suspiró hondo y añadió: “El cáncer es curable en su diagnóstico precoz (las estadísticas lo confirman), la familia debe saberlo”.

Diacritics and HTML Code

Use of Diacritics

When using HTML, diacritics [los acentos gráficos] must be also coded. For example:

Página = Página

Spanish Accent Rules

Accent rules apply to both capital and lower case letters. For example:

Ácido fólico/ácido fólico

Última revisión/última revisión

Each character and its code is listed below:

	Number	Entity
á	á	á
é	é	é
í	í	í
ó	ó	ó
ñ	ñ	ñ
ú	ú	ú
ü	ü	ü
Á	Á	Á
É	É	É
Í	Í	Í
Ó	Ó	Ó
Ú	Ú	Ú
Ü	Ü	Ü
Ñ	Ñ	Ñ
ª	ª	ª
º	º	º

Punctuation

Symbol	HTML Entity
–	–
—	—
¿	¿
¡	¡
«	«
»	»
»	&#quot; (to open and close)

Sources

• El Diccionario de la Real Academia Española.

• National Association of Hispanic Journalists. Manual de estilo. Knight Ridder: Ann Arbor, c.2003. (Not available online)

• Glosas, órgano informativo de la Comisión de Traducciones de la Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española

• Errores ortotipográficos en la traducción al español. Xosé Castro Roig y Lucía Rodríguez Corral, c.1999

¿How do you type that upside-down question mark thingy?

If you’re learning Spanish and you’re planning to write or take notes on a computer, at some point you’ll probably ask yourself this question. You’ll also need to type the other Spanish accents and characters like:

á, é, í, ó, ú, ü, ñ, ¡

But they can seem a bit fiddly. Are they really that important?

Well, Spanish speakers will probably know what you mean without them. But it looks sloppy – a bit like forgetting capital letters, commas and question marks in English:

if i type like this in english you know what im saying but theres something not quite right

The quick and easy guide to typing Spanish accents

If you want to wow people with your slick Spanish, you’ll need to get those accents and characters right.

Luckily, it’s easy when you know how!

Read on to learn how to type Spanish accents and characters on:

• A Mac
• A PC
• Your smartphone

How to type Spanish accents on a Mac

How to type accents on Spanish vowels

With newer Mac operating systems, typing accents above vowels is simple: just press and hold the letter you want to accent. Next, a menu pops up with all the possible accents. Select the accent you need or press the corresponding number.

How to type ñ

For ñ, use this keyboard combination:

• Press and hold the alt key (sometimes known as option)
• Whilst still holding alt/option, press n
• Wait for the ˜ symbol to appear (highlighted in yellow)
• Now let go of both keys and press n again.

How to type ¿

For the upside down question mark use this combination:

• Press and hold alt/option + shift
• Whilst holding alt/option + shift, press ?

How to type ¡

The keyboard combination for the ¡ symbol may change depending on which computer you’re using (for mine, it’s alt/option + ?).

Here’s a simple way to find it on your keyboard:

• Press and hold the alt/option key
• Whilst still holding alt/option, play around pressing a few keys
• You’ll see a few random symbols come up, like ∆º¬øæ… Keep going until you find ¡

How to type Spanish accents on an old-school Mac

If you want to type á, é, í, ó and ú, but you don’t see a pop-up menu when you press and hold the vowel, you can type the accents with a simple keyboard combination.

The specific key will depend on the keyboard you have, but you can find it easily by using the following method:

• Press and hold alt/option
• Whilst holding alt/option, play around by pressing a few keys until you find this symbol: ´ (highlighted in yellow). On my keyboard, it’s the number 8.
• Now let go of both keys and type the letter you want to accent.

How to type Spanish accents on windows

If you have the U.S. international keyboard installed, you can type Spanish accents on Windows by simply typing an apostrophe followed by the vowel you want to accent.

á = ‘ + a

é = ‘ + e

í = ‘ + i

ó = ‘ + o

ú = ‘ + u

Here are the keyboard combos for the other accents/characters:

ü = ” + u

n = ˜+ n

¡ = alt + !

¿ = alt + ?

You can install this keyboard by searching language settings > options > add a keyboard > United-States International. Once you’ve installed it, you’ll see a language bar has appeared next to the clock in the start bar. If it’s not already selected, click on the language and select ENG INTL.

How to type Spanish accents on different keyboards

If you have a different keyboard, you can type accents and characters by holding down the alt key and typing a 3-digit number.

Important: for this to work, use the number pad on the right side of your keyboard, not the ones in a row across the top of the letters. If you don’t have one of those pads, you’ll find a solution below.

Here are the codes (character appears when you release the alt button)
á = Alt + 0225
é = Alt + 0233
í = Alt + 0237
ó = Alt + 0243
ú = Alt + 0250

ü = Alt + 0252
ñ = Alt + 0241

¿ = Alt + 0191
¡ = Alt + 0161

It’s probably a good idea to put a little cheat sheet next to your desk for a while to help you remember the codes!

How to type Spanish accents on a keyboard with no number pad

If your keyboard doesn’t have a number pad to the right-hand side, you might be able to change the keys at the top right (e.g: 7,8,9,U,I,O,J,K,L,M) into a number pad. If you have this option, you should see the corresponding numbers under each letter.

To activate this number pad, you’ll need to use the Num Lock key (sometimes known as Num LK or Num). The exact steps to activate the number pad will depend on your keyboard/computer set up, but here are some of the most common:

• Press the Num Lock button
• Shift + Num Lock
• Num Lock + Fn
• Num Lock + Alt

Once you’ve found your number pad, you can get the Spanish accents and characters by typing the Alt+ number combinations above.

How to type Spanish accents with the character map

Another way to find Spanish accents and symbols in Windows is by using the character map.

• Go to the start button and search for character map.
• Scroll down to find the letter/character you want.
• Copy and paste it into your document.

Searching for the letters and symbols can get a little cumbersome, so if you’re going to use a character map to type Spanish accents, you could create a new document with all the Spanish accents and characters so you have them to hand.

How to type Spanish accents on Microsoft office

If you’re using Microsoft Office, you can add accents to vowels by pressing and holding the following keys together:

• Ctrl
• ‘
• vowel you want to accent

For example, to put an accent over the letter a, press: Ctrl + ‘ + a =  á

Bonus: How to type Spanish accents and characters on your phone

What about if you want to chat in Spanish on your smartphone?

With most smartphones, typing accents on keyboards is simple: just hold down the letter you’d like to accent, and a menu will pop up.

To turn question marks and exclamation points upside down, hold these buttons down and you’ll see a menu with the inverted versions.

Related posts:

The lazy person’s guide to learning Spanish

The 11 best tools for learning Spanish (from beginner to advanced)

Become fluent in Spanish in 1 year without leaving the house: a step-by-step guide

Over to you!

Do you know how to type Spanish symbols on your keyboard now? Write a Spanish sentence below, using some Spanish accents and characters!

Tags:

• learn Spanish

Katie is a teacher, blogger and all round language nerd. Based in Milan, Italy, when she’s not huddled behind her desk writing or learning languages, you’ll probably find her sitting out on the terrace with a beer in one hand and a slice of pizza in the other.