1. Usage of quotation marks: ① Commas and periods belonging to quotation marks are inside quotation marks in American English, but mostly outside quotation marks in British English; (2) When quotation marks are used, American English contains double quotation marks and British English contains single quotation marks.
In American English, if the ellipsis happens to be at the end of a sentence, use four dots, such as I't want to ... that is ... if you don't mind. ....
2. Usage of colon: ① Between hours and minutes, American English uses colon and British English uses period; (2) In American English, a colon should be added after the address form of letters or speeches, while in British English, commas are often used.
Differences between Chinese and English punctuation marks
The punctuation marks currently used in Chinese are borrowed from the western punctuation system, which not only retains the main characteristics of western punctuation marks, but also has the characteristics suitable for Chinese. Therefore, there are some differences in punctuation between Chinese and English.
Some punctuation marks in Chinese are not found in English.
(1) pause (,): pause plays a role in dividing coordinate components in sentences in Chinese; There is no pause in English, and commas are often used as coordinate elements in clauses. For example:
She moved the box slowly, carefully and deliberately.
Note: In similar situations, and can be added after the last comma, and this comma can also be omitted-she moves the box slowly and carefully (,) and subtly.
⑵ Title (): There is no title in English, and the titles of books and newspapers are indicated in italics or underlined. For example:
Hamlet/Hamlet Hamlet
Winter Story/Winter Story "Winter Fairy Tale"
The New York Times/new york Times The New York Times
In addition, the names of articles, poems, music, movies, paintings, vehicles, spacecraft and other proper nouns in English are often expressed in italics.
(3) Interval number (? ): Chinese has a separator, which is used in the middle of words that need to be separated, such as month, day, transliteration name and surname, such as "12? Nine ","Audrey? Hepburn (name) "and so on. There are no Chinese interval symbols in English, so commas are often used when intervals are needed.
(4) Bullets: Chinese sometimes uses solid dots under words to indicate words that need to be emphasized. These solid dots are bullets. However, there is no such symbol in English. When you need to emphasize some elements, you can use italics, some emphasized words, special sentence patterns, punctuation pauses and other methods.
Some punctuation marks in English are not found in Chinese.
(1) apostrophe-apostrophe (')
(2) hyphen-hyphen (-)
⑶ slash symbol-virgule or slash (/): This symbol mainly plays the role of division, for example, it can be used for employees and/or students. It is also often used for phonetic notation, such as bed /bed/.
3. Some symbols have different forms in Chinese and English.
(1) The period in Chinese is a hollow circle (. )
The period in English is a solid dot (. ).
② The ellipsis in English is three dots (...), which are located at the bottom of the line;
Six points in Chinese (...), living in the industry.
(3) The dash in English is (-)
Chinese is (-)
Analysis of Common Punctuation Errors of Students in China
(1) Incorrect pause, title, period and ellipsis. Comparing Chinese and English punctuation marks, we can see that there are no Chinese pauses, titles, periods and ellipsis in English punctuation marks. These four punctuation marks have become frequently quoted symbols in college English writing. For example:
[Error] 1. While she was reading Gone with the Wind, I was cooking.
[Error] 2. My sister bought me a lot of fruits, such as bananas, oranges, apples and pears.
In English, the names of books, newspapers, plays, movies, paintings, etc. It is expressed in italics in printed form and in italics in written or typed text; Comma is often used instead of colon in English; And the period is indicated by solid black dots. Therefore, the above two sentences should be changed to:
[revised] 1. While she was reading Gone with the Wind, I was cooking. (Printed)
Or when she was watching Gone with the Wind, I was cooking.
[Modification] 2. My sister bought me a lot of fruits, such as bananas, oranges, apples and pears.
Also, the ellipsis in English is actually the juxtaposition of three periods. Many students often mispronounce English ellipsis as six points because of the influence of Chinese.
(2) The colon is wrong. Colons are punctuation marks in both Chinese and English. In Chinese, a colon is a pause after a suggestive speech. It is often used after verbs such as "say, say, talk, ask, sing, answer, shout and roar" to indicate who said the following words. This usage affects the punctuation of the following English sentences:
[Error] 3. I thought to myself, "What kind of trap is Salaying?"
[Error] 4. He asked, "Where are you from?"
In both cases, colons need to be represented by English commas. The colon in Chinese can also be used to prompt "if the time is as follows" and "like" causes the following. In English expressions, words like "for example" are often followed by commas instead of colons.
[Error] 5. Good manners can be seen in daily life. For example, a polite person is kind.
Help others.
[Modification] 5. Good manners can be seen in daily life. For example, a polite person is kind and helpful.
(3) The dash is incorrect. In Chinese, dashes represent the explanatory part of the text, and English appositives also have the same explanatory function, so it is not uncommon to use dashes to connect appositive components in English writing. For example:
6. We study and live in a famous university-Peking University.
6. We study and live in Peking University, a famous university.
For appositives, English generally uses commas instead of dashes. The use of dashes in English is far less abundant than that in Chinese.