Imagine reading a piece of text where the words flow down the page like a waterfall, and instead of periods, commas, and dashes, you have to rely solely on your understanding of the language to decipher its meaning. That’s how Classical Chinese used to be written, with columns running from top to bottom and from right to left and usually no punctuation at all. Thankfully, around 1930 that punctuation began to be viewed as a crucial element of Chinese writing.
In contrast to Classical Chinese, modern Chinese is typically written horizontally from left to right, much like English. As a result, punctuation marks are typically placed to the right of the last character, taking up a single space. Let’s take a look at the punctuation marks used in modern Chinese.
There are several modern Chinese punctuation marks are borrowed from European languages and some special Chinese punctuation marks that are original to Chinese, let’s look at both sets now.
Western punctuation marks used in Chinese
Chinese punctuation marks borrowed from European languages include:
- The comma: used for separating clauses or indicating a pause but cannot be used for lists.
- The question mark: used for asking questions.
- The exclamation mark: used for showing emphasis or strong emotion.
- The colon: used to introduce a list or clarify information.
- The semi-colon: used to separate closely related independent clauses.
- Parentheses: used to provide additional information.
- Quotation marks: used in Simplified Chinese for quotations and are used in the same format as in English: “ … ‘…’ … ”.
Special Chinese punctuation marks
1. Full stop ‘。’
The Chinese equivalent of the full stop serves the same function as the English period, but its appearance differs slightly. In Chinese, the full stop is represented by a full-width small circle that is positioned at the bottom right of the final character in the sentence, regardless of whether the text is written vertically or horizontally.
Example: 我饿了。 (wǒ è le.) I am hungry.
2. Enumeration comma ‘、’
When creating a list in Chinese, it’s important to use the enumeration comma instead of the regular comma. This is necessary because Chinese doesn’t use an equivalent of the English “and” when making a list.
Example: 我喜欢苹果，香蕉、葡萄。
Wǒ xǐhuān píngguǒ 、 xiāngjiāo 、 pútáo.
I like apples, bananas, and grapes.
3. Title mark ‘《…》’
The title mark is made up of two full-width double angle brackets. It is used for titles of books, films, and so on.
Example: 我想看《功夫熊猫》。
Wǒ xiǎng kàn 《 Gōngfū Xióngmāo 》.
I want to watch “Kung Fu Panda”.
4. Ellipsis ‘……’
In Chinese the Ellipsis is used in the same way it is used in English. The only difference is that the Chinese ellipsis is six dots instead of three.
Example: 我在想…..
Wǒ zài xiǎng …..
I’m thinking…
5. Middle Dot ‘·’
In Chinese, a middle dot is used to separate characters in non-Han personal names. When translating and writing a non-Han personal name, it is customary to include a middle dot between the first, middle, and last names.
Example: 威廉·莎士比亚
Wēilián·shāshìbǐyǎ
William Shakespeare
Punctuation Marks Used in Pinyin
When writing in pinyin, you can utilize the same punctuation marks as you would when writing in characters. However, it is important to note that when using pinyin, a Western full stop should be used instead of a Chinese one. Additionally, according to Western conventions, the first letter of a sentence and all proper nouns should be capitalized.
There is some ambiguity about the use of spaces in pinyin but typically, morphemes (syllables) that make up one word should be written together, with spaces used to separate each word.
Apostrophe
The apostrophe is the only punctuation mark that is used solely in pinyin and not with characters. It is used before any syllable that begins with a, e, or o. For example, kě’ài (可爱) cute. The apostrophe is also used to avoid pronunciation ambiguity. For example, ‘Xian’ could represent the character 先 xiān (first) or it could be 西安 Xī’ān (a famous city in China). As you can see the apostrophe is used to clarify which syllables are being represented.
Chinese punctuation is not particularly challenging, and for the most part it is similar to English. Nonetheless, it’s crucial to pay attention to and remember the differences.