In Spanish, there are two types of punctuation marks that are used to indicate a quote, speech, or citation: rayas and comillas. These punctuation marks don’t use quite the same rules as English quotation marks and have different uses. In fact, I had to do a lot of research on them lately as part of a translation project! If you’re interested in the details, the Real Academia Española has a great description of each one here and here. Meanwhile, below the cut I give my own translation and breakdown of the main rules.
Rayas (—) (— —)
Just like parenthesis, there are two types of rayas: rayas de apertura (opening) and rayas de cierre (closing). Rayas de cierre are only used when introducing a subsection within a larger text, such as a speech tag. Both kinds are attached to their constituent phrases: there’s no space between the raya de apertura and the first letter/symbol of the quote or speech, and also no space between the last letter/symbol and the raya de cierre.
Use a raya de apertura to indicate a change in speaker, unless the name of any speaker is mentioned. Usually, in novels and other narrative texts, a change in speaker is indicated by line breaks, but you can also just have a block of text if speakers alternate.
—¿Qué horas son? —No tengo ni idea. —¡Mira, ya son las nueve! —Tranquilo. Llegaremos con mucho tiempo.
Use both rayas de apertura and rayas de cierre on a tag or narrative comment that interrupts speech when the speech continues immediately after. Punctuation from the first half of the utterance goes after the raya de cierre of the interjection, even if it’s a semicolon or a colon.
—Estudié mucho —dijo Emelia, abriendo la puerta del aula—; todavía me preocupo por el examen.
Use just a raya de apertura for narrative commentary after an utterance, when the speaker does not continue speaking immediately.
—Estudié mucho pero todavía me preocupo por el examen —dijo Azucena con una risa. Ella abrió la puerta del aula.
When the narrative comment begins with a speech verb (decir, añadir, asegurar, preguntar, exclamar, reponer, etc.), then the comment begins with lowercase, even when it is preceded by a punctuation mark like a period, exclamation mark, etc.
—¡Qué lindo es ese bolígrafo! —exclamó José.
When the narrative comment doesn’t begin with a speech verb, the speaker’s words must end with a period and the narrative comment must begin with uppercase.
—Nos vemos mañana. —Él se levantó y se marchó.
When a narrative comment interrupts speech and the comment ends with a period, it’s written after the raya de cierre. Colons and semicolons can also go in the same place.
—Durante las vaccaciones, cociné mucho —me dijo, y añadió—: hice tamales, tortilla española y plátanos fritos.
Comillas
There are three types: comillas francesas (« ») , comillas inglesas (“ ”) and comilla simples (‘ ’). The RAE indicates they should be used in this order of priority, i.e. comillas francesas are the highest level of quotation and comillas simples are the smallest. However, there are also different styles and I have seen comillas inglesas becoming more popular in Latin America and among younger writers.
«Julio me dijo: “Mira el ‘bujo’ que se ha comprado María”»
Comillas are used mainly for citations from a text, transcript, movie, speech, etc. You won’t find them used quite as much for dialogue, but it’s done sometimes.
They’re also used for informal or borrowed words, like bujo in the example above. When a word or phrase is written between comillas, we say it’s entrecomillado.
Let me know if there are any mistakes in this post or if you want to be tagged in future posts about Spanish grammar and punctuation 😁✨
