Spanish language style guide and grammar

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

Abbreviations, acronyms, and em dash

Abbreviations

Incorrect use: EE UU
Correct use: EE. UU. (Estados Unidos)

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

Incorrect use: CD-ROM
Correct use: CD-ROM (Compact Disk–Read Only Memory)

Incorrect use: E.U.A.
Correct use: EUA

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.

Plural acronyms

Acronyms do not add an "s" to denote plural when preceded by articles or words that denote plural, such as "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)

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 and 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

Common use

• 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)

According to the Diccionario de la Real Academia Española, the meaning of these terms is:

• Billón = Un millón de millones, que se expresa por la unidad seguida de doce ceros.
• Trillón = Un millón de billones, que se expresa por la unidad seguida de 18 ceros.

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.

Punctuation

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

Related glossaries and dictionaries

• The Digital.gov Multilingual Community of Practice compiled a list of multilingual glossaries and dictionaries to improve how we communicate with the public in languages other than English.