I have one question that when we read text for comma, semi-colon we use approximately 1 second of pause and for period and colon there is 2 second of pause but I also want to know about following:
- Quotation mark
- Hyphen
- Dash
- Question mark (not at end of sentence)
- Exclamation mark (not at end of sentence)
Best Answer
There are no absolute rules on how long a pause should be. As Andrew commented "it appears there may be a misunderstanding about pausing and intonation".
You say that a "period and colon" is followed by approximately two seconds of wait time. Okay.
Surely you can intentionally place a 2-seconds-long pause in there or wait as long as you like. You can shadow your intonation if you want. We aren't robots that have rules they obey!
In this sentence you can add very long pauses if you want to show that the person was trying to remember. You can pause for more than 2 or 3 seconds in the first part and in the second part too. You will, probably, intentionally show emotions and intonation.