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I see this mid-spaced dot character used a lot:

「・」

According to this article on Japanese punctuation, it’s called an interpunct and it’s used to separate words. But how do I type it? Mac and Windows, please!

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  • +1. Although I can see this question is technically off-topic and will perhaps be closed, I think this is an edge case as how to pronounce/type ・ is a common question and it's not easy to look for in some dictionaries.
    – cypher
    Feb 25, 2012 at 6:34
  • 2
    @cypher Why not just leave it as it is, and see what happens? The “rules” are really just guidelines designed to maintain the tone and quality of the site
    – Pitarou
    Feb 25, 2012 at 9:59
  • 1
    These kinds of computing questions are usually closed as off-topic on this site. Off-topic questions can be migrated to meta from the main site instead of closing them in some cases however, and that's what one of the moderators has done in this case (I posted that comment prior to that happening.)
    – cypher
    Feb 25, 2012 at 10:20
  • @cypher I see. Well, my thanks to the person who migrated the question for me.
    – Pitarou
    Feb 25, 2012 at 12:03
  • 答えた人にありがとうございました！ Many thanks to the people who answered my question.
    – Pitarou
    Feb 25, 2012 at 12:04

8 Answers 8

Reset to default
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I don't have access to a Mac right now, but for some other options for Linux/Windows:

  • なかぐろ seems to work for converting to U+30FB katakana middle dot (・) on both Windows 7 and Anthy for Linux.

  • なかてん doesn't seem to work on the Windows 7 Japanese IME, but it looks like it does convert to U+30FB katakana middle dot (・) on Anthy for Linux.

  • As a side note, though ・ is sometimes called くろまる according to Wikipedia, that converts to U+25CF black circle (●) on both Windows 7 and Anthy for Linux.

  • If all else fails, you can try entering てん into the IME, and it will usually show a big list of punctuation marks.

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  • There were lots of good answers, but I've chosen this as the accepted answer because I can learn 「なかぐり」 once and use it on multiple systems, and the catch-all 「てん」 is likely to solve a few more problems for me in future.
    – Pitarou
    Feb 25, 2012 at 9:46
  • Unfortunately, none of these seem to work with the Google IME. However, as pointed out in another answer, when in Japanese mode, the key to the left of the right SHIFT key inputs the middle dot directly.
    – domsson
    Sep 8, 2022 at 1:05
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On a QWERTY keyboard in Windows 7 Japanese IME, it shares the key with ? and /.

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It's Option+/ in Kotoeri on Mac OS X.

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  • 2
    Did you mean Option+( i.e. the number 8 above the keyboard?
    – Alenanno
    Feb 27, 2012 at 14:45
  • No, I mean the / next to the Shift key. Option+( doesn't do the right thing for me.
    – Zhen Lin
    Feb 27, 2012 at 18:41
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    Option+8 gives me a ・ under Kotoeri which looks like the same thing I get from Option+/. Note that I'm on a US keyboard, so my 8 key is also the * key and 9 is the (.
    – Troyen
    Mar 4, 2012 at 19:41
  • alt-8 works, but alt-/ does not!
    – hasen
    Aug 17, 2014 at 22:12
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For a quick-and-dirty cross-platform solution, I often just visit the online keyboard Google Transliterate (update: I think they renamed it to Google Input Tools, both looks identical).

You can type the interpunct by press the / key.

It's pretty rudimentary, but it works.

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As an alternative to Flaw's answer, if you are using kana-kanji conversion, input its reading " なかてん" and convert it as with kanji conversion.

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On Mac, it's on the slash / key: ・

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For Anthy/UIM on Linux/Unix (possibly Anthy/SCIM too), z/ gives ・

There are a couple of other z-combinations, e.g. hjkl for the arrows ←↓↑→

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  • That's useful to know!
    – Pitarou
    Jun 20, 2012 at 3:46
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On Ubuntu, FCITX it's simply the / character while in Japanese mode. ・

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