In ancient times, there were no punctuation marks in Chinese language and people read books with stops according to the meanings. In modern Chinese language, all kinds of punctuation marks are used. In the process of studying in one-on-one Chinese learning program, students may find that the marks in different places will produce various meanings in the same sentence. In order to let the learners know the importance of the punctuation marks and use them correctly, teachers can find some interesting examples to practice.

The followings are some typical examples that the marks in different positions will cause different meanings. If the students who learn Mandarin Chinese are supposed to add punctuation mark in the sentence 男人没有了女人就害怕了, it is possible to add like both 男人没有了, 女人就害怕了and 男人没有了女人, 就害怕了. Obviously, the meanings in the two sentences are greatly different. During the teaching process, teachers should explain the meaning differences when they have different answers for the punctuation marks in the same sentence.

The most interesting one for both Chinese people and foreign learners is the sentence 下雨天留客天留我不留. If you want to ask a question, you can add like 下雨天, 留客天,留我不留? If you want to express the negative answer, it could be 下雨天留客, 天留我不留! Furthermore, it would be more interesting if you add punctuation marks like 下雨天, 留客天, 留我不? 留! By explaining the importance of the punctuations with these interesting sentences, the learners will have a deep memory and will draw more attention to it.

The specific languages in contact language of different cultures are different. The students who have come to study Mandarin Chinese for a long time should know some obvious differences between them. When we meet someone for the first time, we ask name like “what‘s your name?”in English, meaning 你叫什么名字. However, we do not say like that, we use 您贵姓 to replace it to show respect. Many communicative languages of such style is good to help the learners use the standard Chinese language.