curriculum/challenges/english/blocks/es-a1-learn-consonants-and-special-characters/68f253a24b41de2bca1f5a96.md
Let's talk about the special characters that you'll commonly find in Spanish.
In Spanish, questions and exclamations are marked with opening and closing punctuation marks.
While some languages only need the closing question mark (?) or exclamation point (!), Spanish also requires an inverted question mark (¿) at the beginning of a question and an inverted exclamation point (¡) at the beginning of an exclamation. For example:
¿Hoy? - Today?
¡Sí! - Yes!
As you learned, the letter ñ is unique in Spanish.
The letter combination ll also has a unique sound, similar to a letter y in Spanish. For example:
Lluvia - Rain
In Spanish, you'll also find a unique symbol called an "accent mark" that indicates where you should stress the pronunciation. It's very important because its presence and location can change the meaning of a word.
Only vowels can carry accent marks (á, é, í, ó, ú). Consonants never carry them.
For example, the meaning of the word público ("audience") is different from publicó ("published"). Their only difference is the location of the accent mark.
Interesting, right? You'll learn more about accent marks in more advanced lessons.
The diaeresis (diéresis in Spanish) is a symbol that appears over the letter u to indicate that this letter must be pronounced.
When the letter u has a diaeresis, it looks like this: ü
You'll find it in güe and güi. For example:
Pingüino - Penguin
This one is a bit more advanced and not so common in Spanish, but it's good to you know what it's used for. We'll review it later on.
Now it's time to practice. Write the corresponding opening punctuation marks below.
BLANKNo?
BLANKSí!
¿
This is the opening question mark.
¡
This is the opening exclamation point.