diff --git a/spec/app/language-mode-spec.coffee b/spec/app/language-mode-spec.coffee
index 3eb11c901..035d1419b 100644
--- a/spec/app/language-mode-spec.coffee
+++ b/spec/app/language-mode-spec.coffee
@@ -145,6 +145,17 @@ describe "LanguageMode", ->
             expect(buffer.lineForRow(0)).toBe '"ok"'
             expect(editSession.getCursorBufferPosition()).toEqual [0, 4]
 
+      describe "when the cursor is inside a string", ->
+        it "does not automatically insert closing single or double quote", ->
+          editSession.buffer.setText("'aa'")
+          editSession.setCursorBufferPosition([0, 3])
+          editSession.insertText '"'
+          expect(buffer.lineForRow(0)).toBe "'aa\"'"
+
+          editSession.buffer.setText('"aa"')
+          editSession.setCursorBufferPosition([0, 3])
+          editSession.insertText "'"
+          expect(buffer.lineForRow(0)).toBe '"aa\'"'
 
   describe "javascript", ->
     beforeEach ->
diff --git a/src/app/language-mode.coffee b/src/app/language-mode.coffee
index 6c0b0e259..a99e1ff0e 100644
--- a/src/app/language-mode.coffee
+++ b/src/app/language-mode.coffee
@@ -23,7 +23,10 @@ class LanguageMode
       cursorBufferPosition = @editSession.getCursorBufferPosition()
       nextCharachter = @editSession.getTextInBufferRange([cursorBufferPosition, cursorBufferPosition.add([0,1])])
 
-      autoCompleteOpeningBracket = @isOpeningBracket(text) and /\W|^$/.test(nextCharachter)
+      hasWordAfterCursor = /\w/.test(nextCharachter)
+      cursorInsideString = @tokenizedBuffer.isBufferPositionInsideString(cursorBufferPosition)
+
+      autoCompleteOpeningBracket = @isOpeningBracket(text) and not hasWordAfterCursor and not cursorInsideString
       skipOverExistingClosingBracket = false
       if @isClosingBracket(text) and nextCharachter == text
         if bracketAnchorRange = @bracketAnchorRanges.filter((anchorRange) -> anchorRange.getBufferRange().end.isEqual(cursorBufferPosition))[0]
diff --git a/src/app/tokenized-buffer.coffee b/src/app/tokenized-buffer.coffee
index 0e73574b8..6b9dce69a 100644
--- a/src/app/tokenized-buffer.coffee
+++ b/src/app/tokenized-buffer.coffee
@@ -117,6 +117,10 @@ class TokenizedBuffer
         iterator(token, startOfToken, { stop }) if bufferRange.containsPoint(startOfToken)
         return unless keepLooping
 
+  isBufferPositionInsideString: (bufferPosition) ->
+    if lastScope = _.last(@scopesForPosition(bufferPosition))
+      /^string\./.test(lastScope)
+
   findOpeningBracket: (startBufferPosition) ->
     range = [[0,0], startBufferPosition]
     position = null