Punctuation

Japanese punctuation marks (Yakumono) are different from Western ones. They are full-width characters.

Kuten (Period)

Used at the end of sentences. A small circle, not a dot.

Input: "." usually converts to "。"

Touten (Comma)

Used to separate clauses. Slants to the right.

Input: "," usually converts to "、"

「」

Kagi Kakko

Quotation marks. Used for speech or quoting text.

「こんにちは」と彼は言った。

Nakaguro

Middle dot. Used to list items or separate foreign names.

ロミオ・アンド・ジュリエット
Vertical Writing (Tategaki)

Traditionally, Japanese is written vertically from right to left.

  • Books (Novels)
  • Newspapers
  • Greeting Cards (Nengajo)

Websites and modern documents usually use horizontal (Yokogaki) left-to-right style.

日本語
縦書き
2hongo - Japanese Dictionary with Context