About 42HOW
Chinese: 42 号车库
English: 42HOW
Column Name: 42Mark
Spacing
“People who don’t like to add spaces between Chinese and English words while typing tend to have a hard time in their romantic relationships. 70% of them end up marrying someone they don’t love when they are 34 years old. The remaining 30% can only leave their inheritance to their cats. After all, both love and writing require appropriate intervals.” – vinta/paranoid-auto-spacing (with plug-ins)
Spaces should be added between Chinese and English words
- Correct: WM W6 x Baidu Apollo
- Incorrect: WMW6 X BaiduApollo
LI Xiang ONE, though it’s officially written as “理想ONE,” we don’t follow it, we want the space~
Wuling: Wuling MINIEV; Wuling NanoEV.
Spaces should be added between Chinese and numbers
Example 1:
- Correct: 42HOW was founded in March 2018.
- Incorrect: 42HOW was founded in March 2018.
Example 2: - Correct: Approximately RMB 313,550
- Incorrect: Approximately RMB313,550
Spaces should be added between numbers and units
For example: 5 kg, 4.5 s, 144 TOPS, 5 km/h, referring to BIPM standards.
Also for Volkswagen ID. series, there is a space between the “.” and the number, such as ID. 4.
Exceptions:
- No space is needed between degrees/percentages and numbers, such as: 90%, 90°C.
- There is no space between technical terms like C-V2X.
- There is no space between the “+” sign indicating “more than” and the numbers, such as: 1000+ TOPS, L3+ level.
Spacing assistant web version: https://marvin.42how.com/space/### About Time Writing
Referencing the People’s Republic of China Publication Manual, section 5.1.5 on “Hours, Minutes, and Seconds,” the correct way to write time is 10:00 (using a colon without spaces before or after).
Punctuation
In general, Chinese text should use Chinese punctuation, and English text should use English punctuation. Do not mix them. For example:
- Correct: “Retail sales growth increased by 50.7% over the previous year, still at a historical high since the China Automotive Technology & Research Center began retail data collection.”
- Incorrect: “Retail sales growth increased by 50.7% over the previous year, still at a historical high since the China Automotive Technology & Research Center began retail data collection,”.
Chinese Quotation Marks
In automotive writing, use「」instead of “and” for quotation marks. For example:
- Usage: “Teacher, what does 「有条不紊』的『紊」mean?”
- Compared usage: “Teacher, what does ‘紊’ mean in ‘有条不紊’?”
Digit Separators
Except for years, all Arabic numerals (including body specifications) should use a comma for every three digits. For example:
- Body: 4,970 x 1,999 x 1,560 mm;
- Model 3 Standard Range Rear-Wheel Drive’s pre-subsidy price in Japan is 5,110,000 yen;
- In March, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) released the national passenger car market analysis, in which the wholesale sales of Tesla China reached 35,478 units.
Hyphen
Referring to section 4.13 on “Hyphen Use” in the People’s Republic of China Punctuation Manual, when indicating the starting and ending points of related items (such as time and location), use an en dash without spaces on either side. For example, February 3-10, 2011; 2010-2020.
Slash
No space should be inserted before or after the slash, either in Chinese or in English, except when quoting poetry.
Item Numbers
When processing several parallel pieces of information, make sure to add item numbers before each piece of information and a semicolon or period at the end of each sentence. For example:
Lotus pure electric product planning:
- In 2022, the Type 132, an E-level ultra-high-end pure electric intelligent SUV, will be released.
- In 2023, the Type 133, an E-level four-door coupe, will be released.
- In 2025, the “pure electric intelligent new species” with the code name Type 134 will be released.### The placement of punctuation marks in quotes
Source: “Interpretation of Punctuation Usage” (Compiled by the Language and Information Management Department of the Ministry of Education, published by the Language and Literature Press in September 2012) - How should punctuation inside and outside quotation marks be handled when citing a source in writing?
Answer: There are three reference standards to determine how to use punctuation marks inside and outside quotation marks in a cited passage: completeness, independence, and whether it occurs at a sentence pause. Based on this, theoretically, eight situations can occur:
-
The citation is incomplete, independent, and occurs at a sentence pause. In this case, there are no punctuation marks within the quotation marks, and there is a period outside the quotation marks. Example:
“He reminded the United States that ‘America only joined the war in 1941, and before that, Hitler’s war machine was already showing problems in the heartland of the Soviet Union.'” -
The citation is complete, independent, and occurs at a sentence pause. In this case, there is a period within the quotation marks and no punctuation mark outside the quotation marks. Example:
“As the saying goes, ‘A blade of grass on the wall moves when the wind blows.’ There is no better way to describe this group.” -
The citation is incomplete, independent, but does not occur at a sentence pause. This situation does not actually exist because if it is used independently, it must occur at a sentence pause.
-
The citation is complete, independent, but does not occur at a sentence pause. This situation does not actually exist either.
-
The citation is incomplete, not independent, and occurs at a sentence pause. In this case, there are no punctuation marks within the quotation marks, and there is a period outside the quotation marks. Example:
”
The beauty of heaven and earth lies in the scenery, as well as ‘turnip greens at the stream bank.’ It is a unique and natural beauty that is seen in simplicity.” -
The citation is complete, not independent, and occurs at a sentence pause. In this case, there are no punctuation marks within the quotation marks (question marks and exclamation marks are preserved), and there is a period outside the quotation marks. Example:
“They forgot or didn’t know ‘to know that you know what you know, and to know that you do not know what you do not know, that is true knowledge,’ thinking they were always smarter than others.” -
The citation is incomplete, not independent, and does not occur at a sentence pause. In this case, there are no punctuation marks inside or outside the quotation marks. Example:
“In Li Bai’s poem, there is the exquisite sentence ‘three thousand feet of white hair.'” -
The citation is complete, not independent, and does not occur at a sentence pause. In this case, there are no punctuation marks within the quotation marks (question marks and exclamation marks are preserved), and there is no punctuation mark outside the quotation marks. Example:
“‘Xiaobo, stop it!’ is an imperative sentence. The Communist Party’s basic line of ‘one central task and two basic points,’ which rallies people’s hearts and encourages progress, is a tremendous magical tool for promoting the victory of reform and opening up, and socialist modernization.
- Why is the question mark or exclamation mark at the end of a complete citation preserved regardless of whether it is used independently or not?### Capitalization in English
- When English words appear in Chinese text without a specific reference, the first letter should be lowercase. For example: “在此次的 workshop 当中”、”该车的 logo 设计”，etc.
- Computing power unit: TOPS (Tera Operations Per Second), all uppercase.
- “x” stands for “cross” and should be lowercase when representing a joint effort, for example: “威马 W6 x 百度 Apollo”.
- Application program: App.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.