quotation marks and italics

Don't worry about that, but they probably should be straight, plain text quotation marks. That's something that would be set when it was laid out for printing, so house style would be followed, and few people would even notice.

King, it's one thing for writers to leave punctuation matters to the publishers, but some writers self-publish, and those writers should learn the rules. So with that in mind . . .

"Quanto costa?" is correct.

Quoted speech: A foreign term in quoted speech may be handled several ways, depending on the particular circumstance:

He motioned me back: "Mayinlar! Mines!"
We said, "Pozhaluista, sadites—Please, sit down."
"Allah akbar—God is most great."
"We call it kaynana-dili," he volunteered, "tongue of mother-in-law."
"Harru, harru," he called out. "Go left, go left." "Atsuk, atsuk. Go right, go right."

In Spanish, note introductory question mark and exclamation point:
"¿Cuánto vale?—How much is it worth?"
"¡Bueno!—Good!"

Notice that a quotation mark next to a word in italics is also italicized, while a mark next to a word not in italics is not.

Here's a link to a more detailed explanation.

http://stylemanual.ngs.org/home/F/foreign-terms

No sane editor is going to blink even once at the use of italics in instances like this. Don't worry about it. Worry about the words inside the quotation.

caw

blacbird said:

No sane editor is going to blink even once at the use of italics in instances like this. Don't worry about it. Worry about the words inside the quotation.

caw

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Yes, blacbird, but like I said above, some writers won't have editors. It doesn't hurt to know the rules and not rely on others to do the work for you.

Then to reflect what the squid wrote: Don't look that closely. Either way it correct.

citymouse said:

Example: "Quanto costa?" or "Quanto costa?"
!

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My issue is with foreign words being in italics. If someone says, "Bonjour", that's what they say. Why italicise the word?

Because I use italics for emphasis - as in: "You are such an idiot", whenever I see words in italics they make me want to shout/emphasise them.

qwerty said:

My issue is with foreign words being in italics. If someone says, "Bonjour", that's what they say. Why italicise the word?

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But the OP's question wasn't about italicizing foreign words. It was, what do you do with the quotation marks if you do?

citymouse said:

My CMS states that foreign words that have not come over into common English usage, should be italicized.

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Your CMS will also be the first to admit that editorial discretion must come into play in making decisions about a specific work. Style manuals can offer general guidance but cannot know the particulars of your work and your audience. And as guttersquid says, if there are no external players making style decisions about your work, you are free to pick and choose which parts of CMS are useful to you.

My CMS didn't discuss italicizing quotation marks around italicized words--at least I couldn't fine any guideline for its usage.

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Check sections 6.2 and 6.4 of the 16th edition of CMS for general guidelines of punctuation next to italics. Their policy has changed from previous CMS editions to reflect the fact that much publishing today is electronic.