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How to Write Dialogues

Why Write Dialogues

In order to provide context, sometimes single sentences are not enough.

Formatting Standards - Examples

English - Put each sentence in (double) quotes.

"I caught a bad cold." "That's too bad."

Japanese - Put each sentence in quotes 「　」without 。 There is no additional space between these quotes 」「.

「悪い風邪を引きました」「それはいけませんね」

Others - (In Progress - Just Notes)

NOTE: Perhaps most languages that use the quote character ("), are using the same standard in the Tatoeba Corpus as English does. I've checked the following languages.

Esperanto

(No native speakers, but ...)

520 examples use this format. "SENTENCE_1" "SENTENCE_2"

184 examples use this format. "SENTENCE_1" - "SENTENCE_2"

French

75 examples by native speakers use "SENTENCE_1" "SENTENCE_2" (Same as English)

32 examples by native speakers use « SENTENCE_1 » « SENTENCE_2 »

5 examples by native speakers use "SENTENCE_1" - "SENTENCE_2"

German

212 examples by native speakers use „SENTENCE_1“ — „SENTENCE_2“

180 examples by native speakers use "SENTENCE_1" "SENTENCE_2"

82 examples by native speakers use "SENTENCE_1" - "SENTENCE_2"

54 examples by native speakers use „SENTENCE_1“ „SENTENCE_1“

Hebrew

193 examples by native speakers use "SENTENCE_1" "SENTENCE_2"

? examples by native speakers use "SENTENCE_1" - "SENTENCE_2" (I can't easily check RTL languages for this.)

Portuguese

606 examples by native speakers use "SENTENCE_1" "SENTENCE_2" (Same as English)

0 examples by native speakers use "SENTENCE_1" - "SENTENCE_2"

Spanish

383 examples by native speakers use "SENTENCE_1" "SENTENCE_2" (Same as English)

6 examples by native speakers use "SENTENCE_1" - "SENTENCE_2"

Reference

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-English_usage_of_quotation_marks This might be a good guide. However, the Tatoeba Corpus has adopted "straight" quotes as the standard rather than "curly" quotes.