Punctuation in Korean

Korean traditionally didn’t have much punctuation because the grammar itself makes it easy to distinguish between functions of a sentence. They started using European punctuation fairly recently and so use most things in similar ways but have some differences with English.

  • Traditionally (·) is used like a comma in lists (사과·배·복숭아·수박) but commas are also common now. 
  • (…) is also sometimes written higher up as (···).
  • Double quotation marks (” ”) single quotation marks (’ ‘), (< >) and (「 」) are all sometimes used for quotations. 
  • (〜) is used to mark ranges in numbers (1〜10), to indicate a long or drawn-out vowel (like thiiiis) and to denote a lighter or friendlier feeling in text.
  • When following an English initial with a period, there may not be a space after the period (J.Smith) or after the last initial (U.S.A).
  • Often no spaces before or after clarifying parenthesis because of particles (금광열(金鑛熱)이…, “용광로(a melting pot)"를…).
  • The same with quotation marks.. ("경악스러운 인사"라며…).
  • Space before colons and semi-colons (지정 : 2005년 7월).

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also for real in-depth explanations of each mark: korean.go.kr

hi! do you know what the punctuation rules are for titles? for example are movie titles italicized? is anything ever italicized? when are italics and quotation marks used? is the double quotation mark the standard or the single quotation mark, as in british english? (asking as english native speaker in the US) thank you in advance!!!!

Hi, what an interesting question! 

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Korean italicized… I might just not remember though? Using this page on entertainment news as an example, you can see most of the movie, tv show, and album titles are just marked by single quotation marks. This might not be the same everywhere though! 

I feel like sometimes I’ve seen titles in news headlines marked by < > these guys but I can’t think of specific examples of that… If anyone knows specific rules for punctuating titles please let us know. 🙂 

표 = mark (diagram, ticket, tag etc.) 
물음 (물다) = question
느낌 (느끼다) = feeling 

마침 = just (time) 마치다 = to finish, end

오다 + 점 = spot/point you come to
쉼 (쉬다) = rest 
별 = star
따오다 = to quote 
호 = number, edition 
골뱅이 = whelk 
띄다 = to leave a space 
공백 = blank, vacuum