Chinese Punctuation 標點符號

標點符號

Chinese punctuation marks are used to organize and clarify written Chinese. Chinese punctuation marks are similar in function to English punctuation marks, but sometimes differ in form.

All Chinese characters are written to a uniform size, and this size also extends to punctuation marks, so Chinese punctuation marks usually take up more space than their English counterparts.

Chinese characters can be written either vertically or horizontally, so the Chinese punctuation marks change position depending on the direction of the text. For example, parentheses and quotation marks are rotated 90 degrees when written vertically, and the full stop mark is placed below and to the right of the last character when written vertically.

Before adapting punctuation marks from the Western world, Chinese text did not contain such symbols. Ancient Chinese text has hundreds and thousands of characters with literally no spaces between them. As the 20th century came around and Eastern text adapted to modernization, Chinese texts also applied punctuation marks to indicate sentence structure. However, even though Chinese punctuation marks called 标点符号 (biāo diǎn fú hào), are derived from Western ones, there are many differences between the two.

ORIENTATION OF PUNCTUATION

Since Chinese text can be written vertically (column written top to down, columns written right to left) or horizontally, some punctuations adapt to these changes. Each Chinese character occupies a square space, and so each punctuation mark does the same. As such, Chinese punctuation marks are called full-width, as opposed to English half-width punctuation, because of the space they take up.

Certain punctuation marks rotate 90 degrees when the text is written in a vertical form. Square quotation marks, parenthesis, and book title marks are a few of the symbols that follow this rule.

MARKS SIMILAR TO WESTERN PUNCTUATION

These symbols directly translate over from Western to Eastern languages, including their meaning, appearance, and usage.

1. ！(惊叹号/jīng tàn hào) is an exclamation mark
2. ？(问号/wèn hào) is a question mark
3. ；(分号/fēn hào) is a semicolon
4. ：(冒号/mào hào) is a colon
5. ( ) (括号/guā hào or kuò hào ) are parentheses
6. ，(逗号/Dòu hào) is a comma. However, it cannot be used to separate different parts of the whole list; there is a separate comma for that use.

MARKS DISTINCT TO THE CHINESE LANGUAGE

While some punctuation marks are similar or exactly the same as their Western counterparts, there also exists punctuation that are exclusive to Chinese text.

1. 。(句号/jù hào) is a full stop, equivalent to a period in Western punctuation.
2. 、(顿号/dùn hào) is an enumerated comma, used when listing things in sentences. For example, “I like red, blue and purple.” would be written as “我喜欢红色、蓝色和紫色。”
3. 《... 》(书名号/shū míng hào) are used to signify book titles, song titles, movie titles, etc. In vertical text it would rotate, appearing as ︽…︾.
4. 「...」/ “...” (引号/yǐn hào) are both used for quotation marks. In Traditional Chinese, whether the text is oriented vertically or horizontally, square quotation marks are used. If the text is horizontal, 「...」would be used, where the ellipses would be replaced with text. If the text is vertical, the quotation marks rotate 90 degrees, so it becomes ﹁...﹂. In English when text is quoted within a quote it would be represented as “… ‘…’ …”. In Chinese, however, the double brackets lay within single brackets, so it would appear as 「...『...』...」. Simplified Chinese adheres to other sets of rules; it uses Western style quotation marks for horizontal text and corner bracket quotation marks for vertical text.

More Explication

Full Stop

The Chinese full stop is a small circle that takes the space of one Chinese character. The Mandarin name of the full stop is 句號/句号 (jù hào).

It is used at the end of simple or complex sentence, as in these examples:

請你幫我買一份報紙。
请你帮我买一份报纸。
Qǐng nǐ bāng wǒ mǎi yī fèn bàozhǐ.
Please help me buy a newspaper.

鯨魚是獸類，不是魚類；蝙蝠是獸類，不是鳥類。
鲸鱼是兽类，不是鱼类；蝙蝠是兽类，不是鸟类。
Jīngyú shì shòu lèi, búshì yú lèi; biānfú shì shòu lèi, búshì niǎo lèi.
Whales are mammals, not fish; bats are mammals, not birds.

Comma

The Mandarin name of the Chinese comma is 逗號/逗号 (dòu hào). It is the same as the English comma, except it takes the space of one full character and is positioned in the middle of the line. It is used to separate clauses within a sentence, and to indicate pauses. Here are some examples:

如果颱風不來，我們就出國旅行。
如果台风不来，我们就出国旅行。
Rúguǒ táifēng bù lái, wǒmen jiù chū guó lǚxíng.
If the typhoon does not come, we will take a trip abroad.

現在的電腦，真是無所不能。
现在的电脑，真是无所不能。
Xiànzài de diànnǎo, zhēnshì wú suǒ bù néng.
Modern computers, they are truly essential.

Enumeration Comma

The enumeration comma is used to separate list items. It is a short dash going from top left to bottom right. The Mandarin name of the enumeration comma is 頓號/顿号 (dùn hào). The difference between the enumeration comma and the regular comma can be seen in the following example:

喜、怒、哀、樂、愛、惡、欲，叫做七情。
喜、怒、哀、乐、爱、恶、欲，叫做七情。
Xǐ, nù, āi, lè, ài, è, yù, jiàozuò qī qíng.
Happiness, anger, sadness, joy, love, hate, and desire are known as the seven passions.

Colon, Semicolon, Question Mark & Exclamation Mark

These four Chinese punctuation marks are the same as their English counterparts and have the same usage as in English. Their names are as follows:

1. Colon冒號/冒号 (mào hào) - ：
2. Semicolon - 分號/分号 (fēnhào) - ；
3. Question Mark - 問號/问号 (wènhào) - ？
4. Exclamation Mark - 驚嘆號/惊叹号 (jīng tàn hào) - ！

Quotation Marks

Quotation marks are called 引號/引号 (yǐn hào) in Mandarin Chinese. There are both single and double quote marks, with the double quotes used within the single quotes:

「...『...』...」
Western-style quotation marks are used in simplified Chinese, but traditional Chinese uses the symbols as shown above. They are used for quoted speech, emphasis and sometimes for proper nouns and titles.

老師說：「你們要記住　國父說的『青年要立志做大事，不要做大官』這句話。」
老师说：“你们要记住　国父说的‘青年要立志做大事，不要做大官’这句话。”
Lǎoshī shuō: “Nǐmen yào jìzhu Guófù shuō de ‘qīngnián yào lì zhì zuò dàshì, bùyào zuò dà guān’ zhè jù huà.”
The teacher said: “You must remember the words of Sun Yat-sen - ‘Youth should be committed to do big things, not to make big government.’"

Note:

Chinese writing does include punctuation, but its use differs quite a bit from what Anglophones are used to. Here are some general principles (please comment or suggest edits if there are more I should add!):

No space after a punctuation mark when typing. This is because, in Chinese fonts, every character takes up the same amount of space, including punctuation. The space following a punctuation mark is "built into" the punctuation mark: "。",
for example, is a period. "，" is a comma.

Highlight in your browser and you'll see I haven't put a space;
it's just that in Chinese fonts every character takes up a full square. (If you look at typed English writing by Chinese ESL students, you'll see that many of them do not put a space between sentences.)

Periods are used to end a sentence, but the concept of what constitutes a sentence is different in English and Chinese (more on that later).

The exclamation point and question mark are pretty much the same as in English. It is required to put a question mark at the end of a question. For example: 你吃了吗？还没！你还没吃啊！？Did you eat? Not yet! You haven't eaten yet!?

The question mark can also be used for indirect questions, like
我想知道这是什么？I'd like to know what this is?
And 他是不是犯了罪？是最重要的问题。

Whether or not he committed a crime? is the most important question.
This usage seems somewhat uncommon, though, and is generally advised against.
It is not necessary to use question marks here.
In simplified Chinese, quotation marks are used as in English. In traditional Chinese,
「the quote goes here, with an 『inner quote here』.」

Chinese book and movie titles are written inside of double angle brackets: 《红楼梦》
Semicolon, colon, and parentheses are used in a manner similar to that of English. Colons are slightly different though.

From Thinking Chinese Translation:
In Chinese [the colon's] role is said to indicate a relatively large pause to attract the reader’s attention. It often follows 是. It also indicates that an explanation or expansion of the previous clause or sentence will follow in the next clause or sentence, in ‘fulfillment of expectation’. In this way, its function is somewhat similar to, and is probably borrowed from, that found in Western writing. However, it does not carry the connective weight that an English colon does. While it may precede a clause that expresses purpose, it does not seem to carry implicit causal or resultative effects. A Chinese colon may often simply not be rendered in an English target text, being fully translated in the verb ‘to be’.

The separation dot ( • ) is used between the first and last names of a foreigner to denote the different order of given and family name. 罗兰 • 巴特 (Roland Barter) is the example given in Thinking Chinese Translation. It can also be used to separate the date's elements: 一 • 二八 is Jan 28.
The dun hao, or enumeration comma, looks like this: 、 It is used between items of a list. 我喜欢苹果、桔子和香蕉。(As Nicolas Du points out in the comments, there's no Oxford Dun Hao before 和, though you could replace 和 with a dun hao.) Or: 她属于那种很聪明、很漂亮的女孩。

This is an important difference between English and Chinese. They do not use commas for this.
To emphasize one or more characters, put a dot under it. (I still don't know how to type this, but I see it a lot.) This is used much less frequently these days; in print, boldface or thick sans-serif (Heiti) is preferred for emphasis.

Six dots for ellipsis: ⋯⋯

The wavy dash ～. 

From Wikipedia:
The wavy dash can also signify a range in Chinese (e.g. 5～20个字 "5 to 20 words"). It is more commonly but not exclusively used when the numbers are estimates (e.g. circa dates and temperatures in weather forecasts). For the most part, however, the en dash and wavy dash are interchangeable; usage is largely a matter of personal taste or institutional style. Two wavy dashes indicate a prolonged vowel in quoted speech (e.g. 哇～～ "waaah").

The dash —— is used differently in Chinese. There is almost never a whole parenthetical thought -- like this one -- in the middle of a sentence like we have in English. Sometimes it is used where we would use a comma. eg: "She was my girlfriend －－ Mary." If used for parenthetical thoughts, it is only used once, with a comma used for the end of the thought (if anything).

Finally the comma (dou hao). Sentences like this, are allowed. It is also okay to have what we would call a comma splice, they don't seem to mind as long it's one idea. From Thinking Chinese Translation:

We must not be deceived, for although it looks like its English counterpart, it behaves very differently. It marks off short sections known as 短句 duan ju (short sen- tences) which may behave as clauses in the English sense, or as full sentences. It can link two duan ju which have a co-ordinate status, or cause and effect status; it can indicate summing up or generalisation; it can indicate purpose. It is often found, perhaps confusingly for English-speaking readers, marking the end of a longish noun phrase that opens a sentence, acting as topic, or subject. The dou hao demarcates ideas or sense groups, as well as linking them, in such a way that the English translation may require either a full stop or a conjunction, and sometimes a restructuring, to achieve the required grammatical subordination.

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