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In what scenarios would you use 「」 quotation marks instead of 『』, and vice
versa?
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2011-06-19T19:19:24.990
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2016-02-20T00:10:08.637
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question
punctuation
When should either 「」 and 『』 be used?
In Japanese, the symbols 「」 are called [鉤括弧]{かぎかっこ} and the symbols 『』 are
called [二重鉤括弧]{にじゅうかぎかっこ}. The basic rules for these symbols are simple: 「」 is
used to denote quotation, and 『』 is used to denote quotation inside a
「」-quote.

Example:

> [先生]{せんせい}が[生徒]{せいと}に「『おはよう』はフランス[語]{ご}で[何]{なん}と[言]{い}いますか」と[聞]{き}いた。  
>  A teacher asked a student, “How do you say ‘Good morning’ in French?”

In some contexts, 『』 is also used to denote the title of a book and other
kinds of works.

Example (from
[Wikipedia](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BA%83%E8%BE%9E%E8%8B%91) with an
English translation by me):

> 『[広辞苑]{こうじえん}』は、[岩波書店]{いわなみしょてん}が[発行]{はっこう}している[中型国語辞典]{ちゅうがたこくごじてん}である。  
>  “Kōjien” is a middle-sized Japanese dictionary published by Iwanami Shoten,
> Publishers.
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2011-06-19T21:52:39.647
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answer
I may be wrong about that, but I think they just serve as primary and
secondary quotation marks - the same way single quotes and double quotes serve
in English. They exist since sometimes printers want to distinguish two kinds
of quotes. How exactly they're used and what exactly they distinguish depends
on the publisher or writer, of course.

The most usual usage pattern (at least for printed publications) is probably
the same as in English: 「 」 are used for main quotations and 『 』 are used for
quotations-within-quotations. That doesn't say this is the only usage pattern
though.

Since most published writing today is actually out there on the net, and
doesn't go through a punctilious (so to speak) publisher, you get all kinds of
different and quite unorthodox uses of punctuation. For that matter,
respectable printers never used straight quotes ("like these") in English, but
only smart quotes (“like this”). They also used em- and en- dashes, never
minus signs. But that doesn't prevent people from using straight quotes and
minus instead of dash everywhere - so expect the same to happen with Japanese.
Standards for punctuation marks existed in the Age of Print, but now the Age
of Print is dead, long live the Age of the Internet.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-06-19T21:54:48.100
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answer