How to Write in Spanish: Key Rules and Tips for Casual to Creative Writing

Writing is an often-overlooked skill by language learners. This guide will help you master everything from essential Spanish writing rules (and how they differ from their English counterparts) to typing an essay writing.

Learn how to write, type and text in Spanish, how to write letters, emails and essays, as well as other forms of writing like journaling and even recipes. Plus, check out some practical tips to help you improve your Spanish writing skills. 

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

Key Spanish Writing Rules

Spanish spelling

Written words in Spanish generally look the way they sound. Compared to English, there are far fewer cases of silent letters, double letters or different spellings for the same sounds. Also, vowels each have their own specific sounds that don’t change, no matter what other letters surround it.

However, Spanish has a couple of spelling oddities that are worth remembering:

• The letter h has no sound. Regardless of its position in a word, it will always be soundless (zanahoria — carrot, hoguera — bonfire, hueso — bone). When it’s combined with the letter c, it makes the same ch sound as in English (chaleco— vest, coche — car, noche — night) and even though it has no sound of its own, it can change the meaning of a word (ola— wave, hola — hello).
• Some letters have similar sounds. The letters that normally cause problems for learners are b/v, r/rr, g/j, ll/y and the “triplets” c/k/q and c/s/z. It would be impossible for you to learn every word containing these pairs, so the best you can do is check a dictionary in case of doubt. 
• Spanish uses accent marks. Accent marks may be small, but they’re very important. If a word has an accent mark in Spanish, don’t ignore it, because accent marks can easily change the pronunciation and meaning of words (tráfico— traffic, trafico — I smuggle, traficó — he smuggled).

Capitalization rules in Spanish

Learning Spanish capitalization is actually pretty straightforward. Spanish capitalizes far fewer words than English, so you just have to remember the words that are not capitalized in Spanish.

For instance, unlike English, Spanish does not capitalize:

• Months
• Days of the week
• Languages
• Nationalities
• Religions and their adjectives
• Social and political movements
• The pronoun yo (I) unless it is the first word in a sentence
• Book titles (except for the first word)
• Movie titles (except for the first word)
• Personal titles (except when they’re the first word in a sentence)

Spanish punctuation

Punctuation is another area where English and Spanish share a lot of features. However, there are some Spanish punctuation rules that may be surprising for Spanish language learners. These are the main ones to watch out for:

• Spanish has an inverted opening question mark and exclamation mark (¿,¡).
• Spanish does not capitalize the first word after a colon.
• Spanish uses a colon in the opening of letters. While English uses a comma (Dear Mrs. Petunia,), Spanish uses a colon (Estimada señora Petunia:).
• Spanish doesn’t use the Oxford comma. The last two items of a list will always be joined with a conjunction like y (and) or o (or).
• Spanish and English write numbers differently. In Spanish, you use a period to separate groups of thousands (e.g. 1450 or 1,450 would be 1.450 in Spanish). Spanish uses the comma as the decimal separator (so 1.5 would be 1,5 in Spanish).
• Spanish places punctuation marks outside quotation marks. For example, in English, you’d write “I love you.” while in Spanish this would be “Te quiero”.
• Dialogue formatting is different in Spanish. The biggest difference is possibly the fact that Spanish uses a dash to open a dialogue (instead of quotation marks) and to enclose the dialogue tag (instead of commas). For example: 

English: “I love him,” she said, “I always have.“

Spanish: –Lo amo –dijo ella–. Siempre lo he amado.

Spanish sentence structure

Sentence structure refers to the internal organization of a language, i.e. the order we have to put elements in a sentence so that it is grammatically correct.

Many Spanish learners think that since both Spanish and English follow the general pattern S + V + O (Subject + Verb + Object), both languages build sentences in the exact same way.

This is true sometimes, as in the following two examples:

Marta está bebiendo café. (S + V + O)
Marta is drinking coffee. (S + V + O)

Unfortunately, this is not always the case, so you should take into account a couple of Spanish sentence structure rules if you want to come up with correct sentences, even if you’re just trying to produce basic Spanish sentences:

• In Spanish, you can omit the subject. If you know who you are talking or writing about, you do not need to mention that person (Tengo hambre — I am hungry). This is possible because verbs in Spanish have a different ending for each grammatical person.
• Adjectives come after the noun in Spanish. There are a few exceptions that change the meaning, but overall, adjectives always come after the noun (la camisa blanca — the white shirt).
• Nouns and adjectives have to agree in Spanish. Every determiner, quantifier, adjective and adverb that refers to a noun must have the same gender and number (el perro negro — the black dog, all words masculine and singular; las tazas rojas — the red cups, all words feminine and plural).
• Negation is very simple in Spanish. The majority of sentences become negative in Spanish by adding no in front of the main verb. No other changes are normally needed. You can also make negations in Spanish by using negative adverbs like nunca (never) and nadie (no one).

Spanish abbreviations

Abbreviations can be used in both formal and informal contexts, and even though they tend to work similarly across languages, there are a couple of things you should know about Spanish abbreviations and how to use them:

• Even though personal titles are not capitalized, their abbreviations are capitalized. For example:

señor — Sr. / Mister

señora — Sra. / Mrs.

doctor — Dr. / Doctor

• Some abbreviations appear very frequently in Spanish correspondence. For instance:

usted — Vd. / formal you

se ruega contestación — S.R.C. / RSVP

• Ordinal numbers are gendered. They’re adjectives, so they take on the gender of the noun they’re referring to. Because of this, their abbreviations are also marked for gender (1º/1ª, 2º/2ª…).
• Spanish abbreviations can have a plural form. Normally, abbreviations add -s to form their plural (página — pág. / page, páginas — págs. / pages). If the abbreviation has only one letter, it’s normally doubled (página — p. / page, páginas — pp. / pages).
• Some acronyms do not accept the plural ending -s. They will still take the plural determiner if necessary (los CD — the CDs). Oddly enough, you have to pronounce the final -s when reading/pronouncing them (los ce-dés — the cee dees).
• Some international abbreviations and acronyms have their own version in Spanish. Examples of this are:

la UE — la Unión Europea / the EU (European Union)

la ONU — la Organización de Naciones Unidas / the UN (United Nations)

• Spanish speakers use a lot of abbreviations when texting. We’ll see some examples of this later in this post.
• English and Spanish write dates differently. In Spanish, the order of writing the date is always day/month/year. So, while an American might read the date 02/07/2018 as February the 7th 2018, for a Spanish-speaking person it would be July the 2nd 2018.
• Spanish uses different measurement systems from American English. This is something to bear in mind not only while writing, but when using Spanish in general. Not everybody knows what inches, feet, pounds or miles are (especially in Spain). Spanish-speaking countries use the metric system, so they use centimeters, meters, kilograms, kilometers, etc.

How to Write a Letter in Spanish

The first thing you need to do before starting to write a letter in Spanish is to decide whether it has to be formal or informal. This will have an impact not only on the body of the letter, but also (and especially) on the way you start and finish writing it.

There are a couple of well-established rules you should bear in mind:

• Querido/a (Dear) is only used in informal letters, while Estimado/a (Dear) is the preferred form in formal ones.
• You normally use just the first name of the person you are writing to if the letter is informal (Querido Julián), but Señor (Mr.), Señora (Mrs.) or Señorita (Miss) and a surname if the letter is formal (Estimado Sr. González).
• Use tú (informal you) in the body of informal letters, but usted/ustedes (formal you singular/plural) in formal ones.
• When closing a letter, you can send Besos y abrazos (Hugs and kisses) in casual letters, but never in formal ones. Use Saludos (Regards) in semi-formal letters, and Cordialmente/Atentamente (Yours sincerely) in formal ones.

How to Write an Email in Spanish

The majority of the rules we had for writing letters also apply to writing an email in Spanish. Make sure that you use the right opening and closing in your email and that the overall tone and the vocabulary used are appropriate to the situation.

When writing an email, especially a formal one, you’ll normally have to include four sections: greeting, reason for writing, body of the email and closing.

Here’s a very brief example of an informal email John wrote to his friend Joanne:

Greeting

¡Hola, Joanne!
(Hi, Joanne!)

Reason for writing

Te escribo para preguntar si irás mañana al cumpleaños de Sonia.
(I’m writing to ask if you’ll be going to Sonia’s birthday tomorrow.)

Body

Me encantaría verte. ¡Hace tanto tiempo que no te veo! Madre mía, creo que la última vez que nos encontramos fue para Navidad. ¿Te acuerdas?
(I would love to see you. I haven’t seen you in ages! Good Lord, I think the last time we ran into each other was on Christmas. Do you remember?)

Closing

Un abrazo,
(Hugs,)

John

How to Write an Essay in Spanish

Starting to write essays in Spanish is possibly one of the most challenging tasks for beginner learners. Going from simple sentences to several paragraphs requires a lot of practice, but there are tons of fixed expressions that can be used in order to make this process easier.

Depending on the type of essay you need to write, you’ll have to cover one or more of the following points:

• Giving your opinion: This is very common in essays, especially the ones included in official Spanish exams. Make sure you use expressions that help you introduce your personal opinions, such as en mi opinión (in my opinion), me parece que (it seems to me that) or creo que (I believe that).
• Agreeing and disagreeing: Another very common type of essay is the one where you’re given a sentence or quotation and you have to agree or disagree with it. Useful expressions here can be estoy de acuerdo (I agree), no estoy de acuerdo (I disagree) and es falso que (it is false that).
• Backing your claims: If you say that something is false or that you know for a fact something is true, you should back your claims with some evidence. Try to introduce words and expressions such as según (according to), demostrar (to demonstrate) and la fuente (the source).
• Conclusion: A conclusion normally summarizes the main topics of the essay and answers any questions and hypotheses that were posed in the introduction. When writing your conclusion, use expressions like en conclusión (in conclusion), por esta razón (for this reason) and en resumen (in summary).

How to Type in Spanish

Spanish and English keyboards are different. Because of that, typing in Spanish can be a challenge for the first few times. There are several ways to type in Spanish on your device:

• You can install a keyboard on your device. 
• You can use Alt codes (Windows) and Opt codes (Macs). 
• You can use online tools such as TypeIt. 

If you take a look at a Spanish keyboard, you will notice some letters, characters and symbols have changed, moved or disappeared. Below are three of the most important differences.

Accent marks

Spanish vowels can have an accent mark (á, é,  í, ó, ú). In order to type the accent, you first have to type the accent key on your keyboard (‘) and then the vowel you want to add the accent mark to.

Another letter with a mark is the Spanish letter ñ. Spanish keyboards have their own ñ key, which corresponds to the (:) key on an English-language keyboard.

The last mark you will need in Spanish is the diéresis (¨). To type this, press Shift + the (‘) key. Then type u or i.

Punctuation

The Spanish language has opening question marks and exclamation marks that are upside-down versions of the marks you already know.

In order to type the opening (inverted) question mark, press Shift and (=). The closing question mark can be typed by pressing Shift and (-).

As for the exclamation marks, the opening one is very easy: just press the (=) key. The closing one can be typed by pressing Shift + 1, like on your normal keyboard.

Symbols

Another change you’ll notice when typing in Spanish is the series of symbols you get by pressing Shift + numbers 2 to 0. Your keyboard probably has the sequence @#$%^&*(), while the Spanish keyboard will give you “·$%&/()=.

There are other differences between both keyboards, like the position of hyphens, dashes, apostrophes, colons, semi-colons, stops and commas, among others. In the beginning, all these differences can be a little bit overwhelming, and you’ll probably type the wrong symbol or letter because your brain will want to do it automatically in your normal keyboard layout.

As with everything, practicing Spanish typing will be the key (no pun intended) to get you used to the new layout. There are even Spanish typing games where you can practice all you want until you feel fully comfortable using the Spanish keyboard.

Texting in Spanish

Texting in any language has its own separate set of rules. For instance, depending on the recipient of the message, two texts can look completely different even if they include the exact same information:

Xq tki. (Because I have to go.) This is very informal, sent to a friend.

Porque tengo que irme. (Because I have to go.) This is sent in a much more formal situation, normally to someone with whom we do not have a very close relationship.

As you can see from the first example, there are a lot of abbreviations and slang words you can use while texting in Spanish, much like you would do in English. It would be impossible to mention all of them here, but if you learn their most common traits, you will be able to text in Spanish like a pro:

• Many letters are omitted. The most common feature you’ll see is the omission of vowels and consonants. For example:

gnl — genial (great)
tmbn — también (also)

• The letters q and c normally become k. Here’s one of the most common examples of this:

tkm — te quiero mucho (I love you so much)

• There are some established abbreviations. You’ll just have to learn these by heart. For instance:

b — bien (good)
q — que/qué (that/what)
xa — para (for)

• Numbers and symbols can also be used. Just as in English, if a number comes close to the pronunciation of a part of a word, some letters will be replaced by numbers.

salu2 — saludos (regards)
100pre — siempre (always)

• Watch out for acronyms. Spanish normally uses their own versions of well-known acronyms. These acronyms are often similar to the international ones or can be understood from the context, but sometimes they will be completely different. For example:

NATO — OTAN 
World Health Organization / WHO — Organización Mundial de la Salud / OMS

Other Types of Spanish Writing

There are many more types of Spanish writing, and each of them has its own intrinsic characteristics and rules. Here are a few of the most common ones.

Creative Writing

Creative writing is any kind of writing that’s not professional, academic or journalistic. Since this definition is so broad, there are also many types of writing that can fall into this category, the most common ones being poetry, novels, scripts, short stories, fairy tales and screenplays, among others.

Creative writing can be an amazing way to improve your Spanish language skills. It forces you to think, be creative, ask questions and find answers to them. If you’re not sure where to start, a Spanish writing prompt can get your creative juices flowing.

If you need some more guidance, many colleges and websites offer courses in Spanish creative writing, like this one from the Hemingway Institute. There’s a community of aspiring writers out there, so it’s also easy to find some people to share your writing with. Joining a local meetup of creative Spanish-language writers is a great way to meet like-minded people who can give you feedback and help you along in your writing journey!

Journaling

Since there are no established rules, journaling can be a good way of practicing writing in Spanish without stress. No one except you will have access to your journal (unless you want to), so it doesn’t matter if you make spelling mistakes or write grammatically incorrect sentences as long as you’re doing it in Spanish.

If you feel that writing a journal in Spanish can be challenging, try to break your thoughts down into smaller chunks. There are many topics you can write about that will allow you to practice your Spanish writing skills in an undemanding way:

• Your bucket list and dreams for the future.
• Things you’re thankful for.
• Things that motivate you and make you happy.
• Reflections on the past day/week/year.
• Your goals for this week/month/year.
• Your favorite places or people and why.

The list goes on and on. Write about the topics you want, whenever you want and however you want. There are tons of journaling prompts out there so if you’re ever stumped, make use of them! 

Recipes

Recipes have a very easy structure: a list of ingredients and steps to cook the dish. You can start practicing writing recipes in Spanish by using the infinitive when you give the instructions (Pelar las patatas — To peel the potatoes), and move on to the imperative mood when you study the Spanish imperativo (Pela las patatas — Peel the potatoes).

Greeting cards

Even though we normally buy ready-made cards, adding a few words of our own could be a very nice finishing touch. If you’re giving a birthday card, remember to include some wishes like ¡Feliz cumpleaños! (Happy birthday!) or ¡Te deseo mucha felicidad! (I wish you lots of happiness!).

If you want to give a Valentine’s Day card, try to make it even more personal by creating a romantic card in Spanish yourself. Do not forget to express your feelings with phrases like Mi amor (My love), Mi cariño (My sweetheart) and Te amo (I love you).

Notes

Notes can be written to say thank you, to ask for a favor or to remind someone to do something. They tend to be very short and to the point, including only information that is absolutely necessary. For this reason, many notes only include one or two words. Here are some examples of short and sweet notes:

• ¡Gracias! (Thanks!)
• Para ti. (For you.)
• ¿Me echas una mano? (Will you help me?)
• Te quiero. (I love you.)
• Que aproveche. (Enjoy your meal.)
• Compra leche. (Buy some milk.)

How to Practice Spanish Writing Skills

Your Spanish writing can only improve if you actually practice it. Luckily, there are many ways to exercise those writing muscles and get both physical and digital practice in. Here are some effective tips and resources to practice writing in Spanish: 

• Try Blogging: If you want to hone those typing skills, a blog is an excellent way to start. You can choose to have an audience (even if it’s just your friends) or just write for yourself. Either way, there’s something satisfying about seeing your writing live on a website. Not sure where to start? Try one of these platforms:   
  • WordPress is a blogging favorite, thanks to its easy-to-use interface. You can produce incredibly polished, professional-looking blogs here without being a blog expert.
  • Blogger is clean, simple and connected to your existing Google account. It’s the easiest way to create and manage multiple blogs, interact with other people in the real world and keep track of interesting posts in an extremely neat and tidy newsfeed.
  • Tumblr is ideal for the non-committal blog writer. This is a great place to just fool around, have fun and post any multimedia content that catches your eye. You can write lengthier posts if the mood strikes you, but on the other hand can post hilarious cat pictures with one-word comments attached. If you’re reluctant to start a blog, start here.
• Use social media: Social media is a simple solution if you’ve got friends who speak Spanish or want to make new Spanish-speaking friends. Its character limit makes it an easy place to start writing in Spanish without the pressure of writing full paragraphs or even complete sentences. You can create separate social media accounts specifically for your Spanish learning. 
• Write everyday things: Are you an obsessive list-writer? Do you make pro and con lists when confronted with big decisions? Most people keep notes of some kind, even if it’s only a grocery shopping list. Start managing your life in Spanish! Every little bit of practice counts. Plus, it’s been proven that thinking, speaking and writing in a foreign language helps you be an all-around better decision-maker.
• Find a writing buddy: A writing buddy can give you a reason to write and hold you accountable. You can find someone to exchange emails, texts or even real letters on any corner of the internet, from social media to Spanish-language forums dedicated to your favorite hobby. There are also several websites dedicated to finding a language exchange buddy. Some of the best include:
  • HelloTalk is a social media site built specifically for the needs and desires of language learners. You can search for a fellow language learner or native Spanish speaker, or plug in your information and let them find you (or both)! Spanish is one of over 100 language options offered here, so you can chat with someone in Spanish and offer them interaction in whatever other language you know well.
  • italki is often recommended to Spanish learners who are seeking tutors, but one often overlooked feature is their exercises page. Here, you can find a daily collection of prompts to get you writing. Other users can comment on your writing with feedback, and you can return the favor in your native language.
  • WhatsApp is a multimedia messaging service used in Europe and several Spanish-speaking countries. If you’ve got friends who speak Spanish, take advantage of this relationship.
  • Reddit isn’t just for browsing diverse internet content, it also boasts a huge, diverse community that you can interact with. Try subreddits for specific countries and regions (such as /r/latinoamerica and /r/ecuador) or for the Spanish language itself (/r/spanish and /r/espanol). 
• Use Google Translate: If you’re not sure how to dive into writing and the very idea seems somewhat daunting, you’re allowed to cheat. No, really! Use Google Translate to give you a place to start. Translate what you want to say into Spanish through the program. Then, carefully edit the text, paying close attention to syntax, diction and grammar. You can also do this backwards—write your sentence in Spanish and try to get the English translation you’re going for. If you’re not sure you produced a good sentence, ask a native speaker for feedback on a website like HiNative.
• Time your writing activities: If you’re finding it difficult to sit down to write, set a timer. It can be as quick as five or 10 minutes, or as long as an hour—whatever works with your schedule. Hold yourself to the allotted time and see what you can come up with! 
• Read a lot: Reading dramatically improves writing ability in foreign (and native) languages. Get into the habit of reading any Spanish language material you can get your hands on. Magazines, newspapers, books, children’s stories—it’s all good. Change all your devices to a Spanish interface so your brain gets subconsciously ingrained with Spanish syntax, grammar and vocabulary. Find your favorite sources of information in Spanish, like BBC, CNN, Vice, BuzzFeed, Vogue and more popular information sources online in Spanish. There are great Spanish language books out there for beginners, intermediate learners and advanced learners approaching fluency. 
• Use apps: A simple note-keeping app is great for keeping track of ideas when inspiration hits and you’re not near your computer. If you like using your phone or tablet for writing (this is ideal for light travelers), you could even use an app like Day One for journaling.

  Another option is the online language learning program FluentU—its quizzes are useful for practicing your spelling with questions where you need to type your answers.

  FluentU takes authentic videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.

  You can try FluentU for free for 2 weeks. Check out the website or download the iOS app or Android app.

  P.S. Click here to take advantage of our current sale! (Expires at the end of this month.)

   

  Try FluentU for FREE!

• Start a personal project: A personal writing project might be a diary, dream journal, scrapbook or nature journal (documenting the wildlife and plants in your backyard and beyond). Writing is an extraordinarily valuable tool for self-reflection. 

 

I know this is a lot of information to digest, but the good news is that you now have everything you need to know about how to write in Spanish. So take a pencil and a piece of paper (or run that word processor you normally use) and start writing in Spanish right away!