JJapan

「 」 or ” ” in japanese graphical user interface

  • March 22, 2025

I am interested in your opinions and experiences. When the graphical user interface (GUI) of a software is translated into Japanese what is more usual when it comes to quoting signs: 「 」 or " " ?

What feels more natural? What feels awkward?

Here you see some examples of the GUI in its English form. What type of quoting signs would you use here?

https://translate.codeberg.org/media/screenshots/bit_dlg_ssh_key.png

https://translate.codeberg.org/media/screenshots/bit_error_include_min_one_folder.png

https://translate.codeberg.org/media/screenshots/bit_question_delete_profile.png

https://translate.codeberg.org/media/screenshots/bit_question_symlink.png

by buhtz

2 comments

  1. anecdotally, I hardly ever see ” ” living in Japan, so my vote goes to 「 」

    The reason probably being that ” can easily be confused with ten-ten.

  2. In my company we use “ “ for paths and 「」 for names. So we would use a warning like
    “file/dir/file.txt”が見つかりませんでした。
    or
    「デザイン」プロフィールを削除しますか？

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