What do I capitalize?
- Dual Dialects
- Aug 17
- 1 min read
Do your students struggle with learning which words to capitalize in English? Learning which words are capitalized can be a challenge! One of the main differences between capitalization in Spanish and English is how titles, days of the week, and months are written. In English, the names of the days of the week (Monday, Tuesday, etc.), the months of the year (January, February, etc.), and nationalities (American, Mexican, etc.) are always capitalized. In Spanish, however, these same words are written with lowercase letters: lunes, febrero, mexicano. This often surprises Spanish learners of English, since they must remember to capitalize these words when writing in English.
Another key difference is in titles and headings. In English, titles of books, articles, and movies usually capitalize the first and last words, as well as all major words in between (e.g., The House of the Spirits). In Spanish, only the first word and proper nouns are capitalized in a title, so the same title would appear as La casa de los espíritus. This rule applies to newspaper headlines, book titles, and essays, giving Spanish writing a more lowercase-heavy appearance compared to English.
Even though this can improve over time, here are some exercises that can help you get started!
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