What's with the question marks?

There are a couple of punctuation marks used in Spanish which are not seen in English, namely the upside down question mark and exclamation mark '¿' and '¡'. They can look a little confusing at first, but are simply used to begin the question or exclamation. Often they come at the beginning of the sentence, but this is not necessarily the case. The upside down symbol appears at the start of the actual question or exclamation even if this is mid-sentence.

A few examples -

¿Como estás? - How are you?
Y la restuarante, ¿donde está? - And the restaurant, where is it?
¡Qué lástima! - What a shame!