Tu viens ? The gap is not a typo: it is the rule.
In English you write Are you coming? In French it is Tu viens ?, with a space before the question mark. That space is not a typo. French typography puts a space before every punctuation mark made of two parts: the question mark, the exclamation mark, the colon and the semicolon.
The space should also be a non-breaking one, so the mark never ends up alone at the start of a line. Below: the full spacing table, the keys to type that space, and the places where the rule changes.
French typesetters sort punctuation into two groups. Single marks, the full stop and the comma, sit right against the word, with a space after. Double marks, made of two parts stacked or joined (? ! : ;), take a space before and a space after.
This comes from the French printing tradition, set down in the style guide of the Imprimerie nationale, and French publishers, newspapers and schools follow it.
Keep this table next to you the first few times you write a French email. It covers every mark you will use in a normal text.
| Mark | Space before | Space after | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| . and , | none | normal | Oui, merci. |
| : | non-breaking | normal | Attention : danger. |
| ; ! ? | non-breaking (thin in print) | normal | Tu viens ? |
| « and » | non-breaking inside the quotes | normal outside | « Bonjour », dit-elle. |
| ( ) and … | none inside, none before … | normal | Il hésite… (encore) |
Words that drop a letter before a vowel, like l' and j', take no space at all after the apostrophe: see the apostrophe in French.
The colon, the semicolon and the exclamation mark follow the same rule as the question mark. The space goes before the mark, never only after it.
Put one space before the group, none between the marks: C'est vrai ?! The same goes for an exclamation inside quotation marks: « Bravo ! »
French uses angle quotation marks, called guillemets, with a non-breaking space on the inside of each one: « Bonjour ». English quotes ("Bonjour") are accepted in informal writing, but in a French text the guillemets look right and the spaces come with them.
A full stop or comma that ends the quoted sentence goes inside or outside depending on whether it belongs to the quote, but the space inside the guillemets stays either way.
A non-breaking space looks like a normal space but glues the mark to the word before it, so a line never starts with a lone question mark. On a screen the difference is invisible until the line wraps.
| Where you write | How to get a non-breaking space |
|---|---|
| Mac | Option + Space |
| Windows | Alt + 0160 on the numeric keypad |
| Microsoft Word | Ctrl + Shift + Space, or set the text language to French and Word adds it before ? ! : ; for you |
| HTML | for a normal one,   for the narrow one used in print |
If you also need é, ç or œ on an English keyboard, the setup is in how to type French accents.
The table above is the rule in France. In Quebec, the Office québécois de la langue française keeps the space before the colon but allows no space, or a very thin one, before ; ! and ?. In Switzerland, practice varies between publishers.
If you write for a Quebec or Swiss reader, check the house style of the school or publisher, or the Banque de dépannage linguistique of the Office québécois. For anything aimed at France, Belgium or a French exam, keep the space before all four marks.
Full stop and comma: no space before. Question mark, exclamation mark, colon, semicolon: a non-breaking space before. Guillemets: a non-breaking space inside. Spacing is the easy part of French writing; capital letters follow their own logic too, covered in capitalization in French. For spelling and agreement, Apostrophe· trains you with dictations corrected word by word.
Is there a space before a question mark in French?
Yes. In France the question mark takes a space before it, ideally a non-breaking one: Tu viens ? Quebec style allows leaving it out.
Do you put a space before a colon in French?
Yes, always, in France and in Quebec: Attention : danger. The space after the colon stays as well.
Is there a space before an exclamation mark in French?
Yes, the same as the question mark: Bravo ! Put a non-breaking space so the exclamation mark stays on the line of the word.
What is a non-breaking space in French typing?
A space that keeps the punctuation mark on the same line as the word before it. On a Mac it is Option + Space; on Windows, Alt + 0160.
Do French punctuation rules apply to commas?
No. The comma and the full stop are single marks: no space before, one space after, exactly as in English.
Apostrophe· reads you a sentence, corrects it word by word, and explains the exact rule behind each mistake.
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