Punctuation question: English vs. Spanish

[clay]

In the modern Spanish written language (Mexico/Latin America, if that matters), how might you punctuate this sentence if it were in Spanish?

He said, "I don't care what you do."

My main question is about the period...in Spanish should it be inside or outside the quotation marks?

[rgG]

http://spanish.about.com/od/writtenspani..._marks.htm

Question: Do commas go inside or outside of quotation marks?

Answer:

In Spanish, punctuation (typically commas or periods) goes outside the quotation marks, although exclamation points or question marks that are part of the quoted material stay inside. This is different than in American English, where punctuation goes inside quotation marks.

See the following examples:

"El asesino es Cordero", me dijo ella. "The murderer is Cordero," she told me.
"Crepúsculo", "Cien años de soledad", "Lo que el viento se llevó" y "El zahir" son libros populares. "Twilight," "100 Years of Solitude," "Gone With the Wind" and "The Zahir" are popular books.

[GuyGene]

clay, in your sentence above, doesn't the period come after the quote in English? I think.

[rgG]

GuyGene wrote:
clay, in your sentence above, doesn't the period come after the quote in English? I think.

No, that is a common error. The period comes inside the quotation marks, in English.

[GuyGene]

Thanks, rg, I never know how to do that one.