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French Orthography

La Ponctuation et les Signes Typographiques

The main punctuation marks and their correct use in formal written French.

Level A2 Category Orthography

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Lesson Summary

The main punctuation marks and their correct use in formal written French.

Orthographe

More Than Just Dots and Dashes

French punctuation follows precise rules that differ from English conventions. The most notable is the use of a non‑breaking space before high‑strokes such as the colon, the semi‑colon, the question mark, and the exclamation mark.

Punctuation Marks and Spacing

Mark	French Name	Before	After	Example
.	le point	no space	space	Il est parti.
,	la virgule	no space	space	Pierre, Paul et Marie
:	les deux‑points	non‑breaking space	space	Il a dit : « Bonjour. »
;	le point‑virgule	non‑breaking space	space	Il pleut ; je reste.
?	le point d’interrogation	non‑breaking space	space	Comment allez‑vous ?
!	le point d’exclamation	non‑breaking space	space	Attention !
« … »	les guillemets	space before opening	space after closing	Il a dit : « Bonjour. »

Capitalisation and Other Signs

In French, proper nouns, the beginning of a sentence, and the first word of a title are capitalised. Days of the week and months are not capitalised unless they begin a sentence. The apostrophe (l’, d’) replaces a vowel before a vowel sound and does not take an extra space.

Examples

Le directeur a dit : « L’entreprise va bien. »
The colon is preceded by a non‑breaking space; the quotation marks enclose the speech.
Paul, Marie et Luc sont arrivés ; Pierre est resté chez lui.
The comma after names and the semi‑colon with its non‑breaking space.