‘断句’ (duàn jù) literally means ‘to cut a sentence’ — ‘断’ (duàn) means ‘to break, cut, or separate’, and ‘句’ (jù) means ‘sentence’ or ‘clause’. Together, the term refers to the process of inserting appropriate punctuation marks (like commas, periods, or pauses) to clarify meaning and structure in unpunctuated or classical Chinese text. It’s especially important when reading ancient texts, poetry, or handwritten notes where punctuation is absent or ambiguous.

This skill requires understanding grammar, semantics, and rhythm — native speakers often do it intuitively, but learners must practice recognizing clause boundaries, subject-verb relationships, and logical breaks. In modern contexts, ‘断句’ also applies to speech segmentation (e.g., determining where one phrase ends and another begins in spoken Chinese), and appears in language teaching, editing, and natural language processing tasks.