Upside down question mark ¿

Spanish marks questions and exclamations at both ends:

• ¿Cómo estás?
• ¿Vienes mañana?
• ¡Qué sorpresa!

The opening mark goes where the question actually starts, which isn’t always the beginning of the sentence: “Si llueve, ¿cancelamos el pícnic?” (If it rains, do we cancel the picnic?)

The Real Academia Española introduced the opening marks in its spelling rules in 1754. They tell readers from the first word that a sentence is a question, which matters because Spanish word order often doesn’t show it. Leaving out ¿ is common in quick texting, but it is a spelling error in edited Spanish.

• ? (question mark): closes the question in Spanish and is the only question mark English uses.
• ¡ (inverted exclamation mark): the Spanish partner for exclamations.
• ⸮ (reversed question mark): a mirror image, not an upside-down one. It has been proposed over the centuries for rhetorical questions and irony, but it is rarely used.
• ‽ (interrobang): a single mark that combines a question mark and an exclamation point, created in the 1960s for questions asked in disbelief.

In English text, the upside-down question mark is correct only when you quote Spanish. Some people use ¿ online for a confused or joking tone; that’s wordplay, not punctuation.

• iPhone: on the numbers keyboard, press and hold the question mark and slide to ¿. Do the same with the exclamation key for ¡.
• Android (Gboard): long-press the question mark on the symbols page.
• Word for Windows: press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+? for ¿.
• Windows US-International layout: Right Alt+/ types ¿ and Right Alt+1 types ¡. The layout is worth adding if you write Spanish often, since it also handles accents.
• LaTeX: \textquestiondown and \textexclamdown.