When mixing Japanese and English, should I use Japanese parentheses?


Should I use Japanese or Western parentheses when inserting a Japanese word
into a sentence parenthetically? For example,

> Japanese uses morae (モーラ)
>
> _or_
>
> Japanese uses morae （モーラ）

Is there any reason from Japanese typography that would suggest to use
Japanese parentheses with Japanese words?




In general, typographically speaking, **Japanese kana and kanji look much
better inside Japanese full-width (or 全角, double-byte) parentheses.** Because
English characters like 'j', 'y' can extend below the baseline, English (半角,
half-width) parentheses tend to be positioned slightly lower than Japanese
ones.

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/AosGh.png)

In some Japanese fonts (such as MS Mincho), this difference may not be
noticeable. But in certain fonts, especially professional ones, combination of
English parentheses and Japanese texts can produce awful results.

In the world of _Japanese_ professional typography, where main text is written
in Japanese, the following is the general rule:

  1. **Use English (half-width, single-byte, 半角) parentheses if they contain only English characters.** Generally, it is _not_ necessary to insert a space before opening parentheses or after closing parentheses, if your software is good enough. Spaces between symbols and texts should be adjusted via settings (such as [`\xkanjiskip`](http://ascii.asciimw.jp/pb/ptex/base/xkanjiskip.html) in Japanese LaTeX and 文字組みアキ量設定 in InDesign). And of course these software can handle line breaks properly, with or without such spaces. In the screenshot above, you can see that inserting such spaces makes almost no difference in the final output. (Notice the tiny dots in the third line. This is the default behavior of InDesign.)

  2. **Always use Japanese (full-width, double-byte, 全角) parentheses if they contain one or more Japanese character(s).** Don't insert any spaces before or after the parentheses.

I emphasize that these rules apply when you're typesetting articles mainly
written in Japanese. It is common to insert (English, single-byte) spaces
before English `(` and after English `)` if you're writing an email. [Japanese
Wikipedia has similar
guideline](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:%E8%A1%A8%E8%A8%98%E3%82%AC%E3%82%A4%E3%83%89#.E6.8B.AC.E5.BC.A7.E9.A1.9E).

And of course, if your article is mainly in _English_ , basically you must
follow the _English_ style guidelines. As @Earthliŋ states, always sticking to
English (half-width) parenthesis is one of the reasonable choices, especially
when your software is not very good at Japanese fonts.

But when the situation permits, you can always choose to use Japanese
parentheses and pursue the best-looking results:

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/fDlwM.png)

To my eyes, the second line (Japanese words surrounded by Japanese
parentheses, surrounded by English spaces) looks best, even though two types
of parentheses coexist in one sentence. But I don't know how it looks to
Westerner's eyes, so I would like to hear opinions of others. And you can
notice that this software properly adjusts the actual spaces between the
words, so you don't have to worry about the unwanted spaces by using "full-
width" parentheses.




In general, typographically speaking, **Japanese kana and kanji look much
better inside Japanese full-width (or 全角, double-byte) parentheses.** Because
English characters like 'j', 'y' can extend below the baseline, English (半角,
half-width) parentheses tend to be positioned slightly lower than Japanese
ones.

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/AosGh.png)

In some Japanese fonts (such as MS Mincho), this difference may not be
noticeable. But in certain fonts, especially professional ones, combination of
English parentheses and Japanese texts can produce awful results.

In the world of _Japanese_ professional typography, where main text is written
in Japanese, the following is the general rule:

  1. **Use English (half-width, single-byte, 半角) parentheses if they contain only English characters.** Generally, it is _not_ necessary to insert a space before opening parentheses or after closing parentheses, if your software is good enough. Spaces between symbols and texts should be adjusted via settings (such as [`\xkanjiskip`](http://ascii.asciimw.jp/pb/ptex/base/xkanjiskip.html) in Japanese LaTeX and 文字組みアキ量設定 in InDesign). And of course these software can handle line breaks properly, with or without such spaces. In the screenshot above, you can see that inserting such spaces makes almost no difference in the final output. (Notice the tiny dots in the third line. This is the default behavior of InDesign.)

  2. **Always use Japanese (full-width, double-byte, 全角) parentheses if they contain one or more Japanese character(s).** Don't insert any spaces before or after the parentheses.

I emphasize that these rules apply when you're typesetting articles mainly
written in Japanese. It is common to insert (English, single-byte) spaces
before English `(` and after English `)` if you're writing an email. [Japanese
Wikipedia has similar
guideline](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:%E8%A1%A8%E8%A8%98%E3%82%AC%E3%82%A4%E3%83%89#.E6.8B.AC.E5.BC.A7.E9.A1.9E).

And of course, if your article is mainly in _English_ , basically you must
follow the _English_ style guidelines. As @Earthliŋ states, always sticking to
English (half-width) parenthesis is one of the reasonable choices, especially
when your software is not very good at Japanese fonts.

But when the situation permits, you can always choose to use Japanese
parentheses and pursue the best-looking results:

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/fDlwM.png)

To my eyes, the second line (Japanese words surrounded by Japanese
parentheses, surrounded by English spaces) looks best, even though two types
of parentheses coexist in one sentence. But I don't know how it looks to
Westerner's eyes, so I would like to hear opinions of others. And you can
notice that this software properly adjusts the actual spaces between the
words, so you don't have to worry about the unwanted spaces by using "full-
width" parentheses.

