Spanish Apostrophe

Written by qualified Spanish expert Inma Sánchez BA

Last updated: 2022-12-19

Apostrophes very rare in Spanish, they're used used in written Spanish to indicate the omission of letters when we pronounce these words in a colloquial register. The most common examples are:

para = pa'

Without the apostrophe:

With the apostrophe:

Without the apostrophe:

With the apostrophe:

Notice how in the examples above, the two words around the apostrophe become one word, similarly to how the two English words did not contract into the single word didn't.

With some prepositions, articles and conjunctions in old texts

In old Spanish texts there are some apostrophes, for example:

Borrowed words

Words with apostrophes borrowed from other languages keep the apostrophe in Spanish. For example:

Incorrect uses of the apostrophe

In Spanish we cannot use the apostrophe in the following cases:

• We cannot use [apostrophe + s] at the end of a pluralised acronym, for example:

• We cannot use the apostrophe in front of the abbreviation of a year, for example:

• We cannot use the apostrophe as the separator for hours and minutes, for example:

• We cannot use the apostrophe as a decimal separator, for example: