One of the frustrating things about English is that sometimes a word can be used in many different ways.
This can be confusing if you are trying to figure out whether or not it needs a comma.
Welcome” can be one of four different parts of speech, but fortunately, the rules about when to use a comma with it are pretty straightforward.
Do you need a comma after “welcome”?
You need a comma after “welcome” if it is an introductory interjection or if it is immediately followed by the name or another word directly addressing the people being spoken to. In all other cases, “welcome” should only be followed by a comma if any other word in the same position would be.
“Welcome” as an introductory interjection
Sometimes, “welcome” appears at the beginning of a sentence as an interjection.
However, it’s important to note that just because “welcome” is at the beginning of a sentence doesn’t mean it’s an introductory interjection.
You can identify it as an introductory interjection because the rest of the sentence can stand alone without it.
Here are a few examples:
Welcome, we hope you will be very happy here.
Welcome, think of our home as your own.
Welcome, everyone is very excited about meeting you!
Notice that in each of the above examples, you could remove the word “welcome” and you would still have a complete sentence.
In these types of sentences where it is an introductory word, “welcome” is acting as a mild interjection.
In sentences where you want to emphasize it more and set it apart from the rest of the sentence, it might stand alone followed by an exclamation mark.
“Welcome” followed by words of address
“Welcome” can also be an adjective.
When it is immediately followed by a person’s or group’s name or other words that directly address those who are welcome, a comma should come after it:
Finally, we want to say welcome, children, and we hope you’ll enjoy your time here.
There are two things you should notice about the examples above.
First, they are all directly addressing the person or people who are being spoken to.
Second, notice that people can be directly addressed either by name or by words that identify them, such as “children” and “all of you.”
If the sentences were offered so that the person or people being welcomed were not spoken to directly, there would not be a comma after “welcome.”
Notice that in the sentence below, the children are still being welcomed, but the speaker or writer is not specifically addressing only them.
Finally, we want to say welcome to the children, and we hope they’ll enjoy their time here.
“Welcome” used in other ways
“Welcome” can be an interjection or an adjective, as discussed above.
It can also be a noun or a verb.
As an adjective, a noun or a verb, it usually is not followed by a comma.
A comma would only be necessary after “welcome” if any word used in the same way would require a comma.
For example, if you are joining two sentences with a conjunction, there needs to be a comma after the last word of the first sentence:
The rain is welcome, but we might have flooding later this week.
If the sentence above is rewritten, “welcome” remains an adjective, but since its position has changed, it no longer needs to be followed by a comma:
The welcome rain might cause flooding later this week.
Don’t be confused if you see “welcome” used as an imperative verb at the beginning of a sentence.
Note that this usage is different from “welcome” as an introductory interjection, and remember that with an introductory interjection, you can remove “welcome” without changing the sentence:
Hey fellow Linguaholics! It’s me, Marcel. I am the proud owner of linguaholic.com. Languages have always been my passion and I have studied Linguistics, Computational Linguistics and Sinology at the University of Zurich. It is my utmost pleasure to share with all of you guys what I know about languages and linguistics in general.