Questions and the inverted marks
A question opens with ¿ and closes with ?. This is not decoration: the reader knows from the very first character to lead into a question intonation. Same with ¡ … !. For example: “¿Cómo te llamas?” — What's your name?. A rule from the Spanish course: worked out on examples, not memorized as a wording.
How it works
A question opens with ¿ and closes with ?. This is not decoration: the reader knows from the very first character to lead into a question intonation. Same with ¡ … !.
English signals a question by moving the verb or dragging in 'do'; Spanish doesn't have to. Word order stays as in a statement: ¿Tú hablas español? is perfectly normal.
By example
- ¿Cómo te llamas?What's your name?
- ¿Dónde está la estación?Where's the station?
- ¡Qué rico!How tasty!
How the rule settles in your head
A rule is not memorized from an explanation. It is memorized from an attempt to use it and a mistake — that is why the app delivers it mixed in with words, not as a separate lesson: it resurfaces exactly where you forgot it.
Frequently asked
Questions and the inverted marks: how does it work in Spanish?
A question opens with ¿ and closes with ?. This is not decoration: the reader knows from the very first character to lead into a question intonation. Same with ¡ … !.
What does it look like in an example sentence Spanish?
“¿Cómo te llamas?” — What's your name?. A rule is easier to test on sentences like this than to memorize as a wording: what surfaces in conversation is the sentence.