- Full stop: 句点(くてん)“Kuten” in Japanese is represented by a small circle.
これはほんです。(“Kore wa hon desu” meaning “This is a book” with a Kuten at the end).
- Question mark: There is no formal punctuation mark in Japanese for questions. Questions too are followed by the full stop mark.
これもほんですか。(“Kore mo hon desu ka” meaning “Is this also a book?” with a Kuten at the end).
- Comma: 読点(とうてん)”Touten” in Japanese is represented by a small line slanting towards left.
ペン、鉛筆、消しゴムなどが要ります。(“Pen, empitsu, keshigomu nado ga irimasu” meaning “pen, pencil , eraser etc are required”).
- Exclamatory mark: There is no formal punctuation mark for this too. Although it is normal to find people using “!” in casual messages.
- Quotation mark: かぎ括弧(かぎかっこ)“Kagikakko” in Japanese is represented by what look like square brackets.
先生は「明日テストがあるよ」と言いました。(Sensei wa “ashita testo ga aruyo” to iimashita meaning “Teacher said “There is a test tomorrow””)
- Besides the above there is one more that is very commonly used called 波線 (はせん)”Hasen” represented by a small wavy line. This is used in the following ways:
~さん (~san) meaning Mr or Ms ABC
9時~(kuji~) meaning 9 o’clock onward.