Punctuation rules are an important part of written language. They help to structure a text in a clear and comprehensible way, to phrase thoughts and information in a way that recipients can easily follow a common thread and understand which parts belong together. While commas and semicolons might not be the first thing you think of when you’re learning a language, they’re an important part. German punctuation may overlap quite a bit with English punctuation, but there are differences that could trip you up.
Here, we compiled the most common uses for German punctuation. Pay special attention to the ways German punctuation is used differently (the commas in particular can be tricky). You’ll be punctuating properly in no time!
A full stop is placed at the end of a sentence. It comes after the last word without a space.
A full stop is also used to abbreviate words.
When you read out a full stop in a URL of a website or in an email address you also use the word Punkt.
A comma has many different functions in German punctuation. First, it’s used when listing a series of items to separate them from one another. Before und (“and”) or oder (“or”), there is never a comma.
A comma is also used to separate two main clauses.
Note: This is considered a “comma splice” in English, which goes against grammatical rules, but it’s fine in German.
However, the comma is optional with two main clauses when they are connected by coordinating conjunctions like und (“and”), oder (“or”) and wie (“as”). The comma may be used for legibility, however.
In sentences that contain both a main and a subordinate clause, you usually have to use a comma to separate them. There are a lot of different types of subordinate clauses, e.g. relative clauses or subordinate clauses introduced with a subordinating conjunction like weil (“because”), wenn (“if,” “when”), dass (“that”), ob (“whether”), obwohl (“although”), bis (“until”) and many more.
Another important use of a comma is in letters or emails. In German, a comma is often used in the opening. Heads up! The text that follows in the next line continues with a lowercase letter, unless the first word is a noun.
How does a comma change the meaning of the following sentence?
In the first sentence (without a comma), Sibel is waiting for two people, because Bea is Sibel’s sister. In the second sentence (with a comma), Sibel is waiting for three people: her sister, Bea and Musti.
A semicolon is mainly used when you think that a full stop would be too strong to separate two parts, because they belong closer together but not as close as to use only a comma to separate them. The important thing to remember is that after a semicolon you continue with lowercase letters, unless the word is a noun.
In everyday writing it’s a less common punctuation mark though. In most cases a semicolon can be replaced by a full stop. You will encounter a semicolon mainly in longer sentences to break them up a little bit or when several items are listed with commas that belong to different categories.
The exclamation mark is mainly used with interjections, exclamations, wishes and orders.
Have a look at the following example. How can an exclamation mark change the tone of the sentence?
The sentence with the full stop is (without any context) more neutral. The exclamation mark, depending on the context, can change the tone of the sentence implying anger, disappointment, sadness, happiness, etc.
A question mark in German indicates that you need to go up with your voice towards the end of the sentence. It’s used at the end of questions, as well as with single question words. Like with the full stop or the exclamation mark, there is no space between the last word and the question mark.
In informal speech you can change a declarative sentence to a question by replacing the full stop with a question mark.
In the first sentence the voice goes down, whereas in the second one the voice goes up, because it’s a question.
A colon introduces a series of items or an explanation. If a full sentence follows the colon, the first letter of the following sentence needs to be capitalized.
Note: “Ich packe in meinen Koffer” is a popular children’s game in Germany. In turns, everyone adds another item and the person after needs to remember the ones mentioned before and add another one. So the list of items can become very long. The game ends when one person can’t remember an item or mixes up the order.
A colon is also used to indicate a direct speech.
Have you noticed where the quotation marks in German are placed? We’ll take a closer look at it now.
Quotation marks in German are unique. The ones at the beginning are at the bottom pointing to the left. The closing ones are at the upper end of the last word point to the right.
They are used for quotations as well as book titles, song titles, movie titles, etc.
Also, quotation marks are used to illustrate direct speech.
The quotation marks enclose everything that belongs to the text of the direct speech, i.e. also the punctuation. Fun Fact: Germans call quotation marks also Gänsefüßchen, which translates to “little geese feet.”
An apostrophe is not often used in German. Some people, especially new learners, use it incorrectly after names to express belonging or possession, which is how it’s used in English. In German, you do not use an apostrophe before the genitive s, which is the “s” is added to the name without any punctuation mark.
However, you need it with names that are ending in s, z, ß or x:
A hyphen is mainly used to separate syllables of a word at the end of a line when a line break happens.
A hyphen is also used to be more efficient when using a language. It can be used to avoid repeating a word.
Here the hyphen after Kinder- is a replacement for Schuhe. This way the word Schuhe does not need to be used twice. Sometimes it’s advisable to use a hyphen with huge compound noun constructions — not uncommon in German — for better readability:
A dash is longer than a hyphen. It indicates a pause for thought or speech, often to emphasize what’s coming next.
It can also be used to “insert” a thought into the bigger sentence. In this case the dash is used as a pair around the insertion.
Need a quick guide to punctuation marks? Here’s what they’re called in German.
| English | Punctuation | German |
| Period/Full Stop | . | der Punkt |
| Comma | , | das Komma |
| Semicolon | ; | das Semikolon |
| Colon | : | der Doppelpunkt |
| Ellipsis | … | Auslassungspunkte |
| Quotation Marks | „ “ | die Anführungszeichen |
| Apostrophe | ‘ | der Apostroph |
| En Dash | – | der Bindestrich |
| Em Dash | — | der Gedankenstrich |
| Parentheses | ( ) | die Klammern |
| Exclamation Mark | ! | das Ausrufezeichen |
| Question Mark | ? | das Fragezeichen |
We hope this overview helped you to understand the use of German punctuation and that you now feel more confident applying the rules. Have a look at the Babbel app to find more ways to improve your German skills.
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