Gateway to Grammar: When to use capital letters in English

In some languages, like German and Russian, the capitalisation (using big letters) is quite complicated. Germans capitalise every noun for example. The good news is it’s a lot easier in English!

In English we capitalise at the beginning of every sentence, and when we write proper nouns (names). All you need to do is capitalise the first letter after a “. ? or !”. As a little tip, notice how “?” and “!” have dots in them? These are the same as a full stop (.).

Proper nouns are names. Let’s look at some examples:

·         Fred and Jamie (names of people and animals).

·         The National History Museum in London (names of places)

·         People from Bulgaria are Bulgarian and speak Bulgarian (countries, nationalities, languages).

·         Monday 2nd July (days and months).

·         Bonus tip: When we use the letter “i” alone, it is always a capital letter!

There you go! I hope these simple rules have helped you capitalise in English!

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