Chinese punctuation is full-width (each mark occupies a character cell) and has a few marks English lacks. Typing IMEs emit them automatically, but you need to know what you're looking at.
The core set
- 。 the ideographic full stop - a circle, not a dot. 我回家了。
- ， comma; 、 the enumeration comma for list items: 苹果、香蕉、橘子 - do not use 、 between clauses.
- ；：？！ semicolon, colon, question mark, exclamation - familiar jobs, full-width shapes.
- 「」 quotation marks in Taiwan and Hong Kong; mainland uses ""（curly quotes）. 《》 wrap titles of books, films, songs: 《红楼梦》.
- · separates foreign names: 乔治·华盛顿; ⋯⋯ is the six-dot ellipsis; —— the em dash.
The traps
Numbers take ordinary half-width punctuation inside full-width text (3.14, 10:30), and mainland formal writing uses "" while Taiwan defaults to 「」 - mixing them in one document reads as sloppy, not stylistic. When typing with an IME, punctuation keys produce the full-width forms in Chinese mode; switching back to English mode restores ASCII marks.
Classical texts had none
Traditional Chinese ran without punctuation for two millennia - readers inserted pauses themselves (句读). Modern marks were adopted in the early 20th century on the Western model. For learners the practical rule: read 。 as the unit of a complete thought, and if a sentence feels long it is probably legal - Chinese tolerates comma-joined chains (我回家了，吃了饭，就睡了。) that English would split.
Common questions
Why is the Chinese period a circle?
。 derives from the traditional punctuation circle used in classical texts - it is full-width to sit inside the character grid, and predates Western punctuation adoption.
What are Chinese quotation marks?
Mainland uses "" and sometimes 《》 for titles; Taiwan and Hong Kong use 「」 (and 『』 nested). All are full-width.
What is the 、 mark in Chinese?
The enumeration comma (顿号) - it separates parallel list items only: 北京、上海、广州. Between clauses you still use ，.