Capitalization
- Dual Dialects
- Oct 8, 2025
- 1 min read
Using capitalization in Spanish can be confusing for English speakers. Although it follows some rules similar to those of English, there are many important differences. For example, in Spanish, we only capitalize the first word of a sentence, names of people, countries, cities, and official titles when they come before a name. However, unlike English, Spanish does not capitalize days of the week, months, languages, nationalities, or religions. So while in English we write Monday, English, or Catholic, in Spanish we write lunes, inglés, and católico with lowercase letters.
Capitalization is also different in titles or headings. In English, many words in a title are capitalized (Title Case), but in Spanish, only the first word and proper nouns are capitalized, like El señor de los anillos (The Lord of the Rings). Continuously practicing these rules with writing exercises helps students write correctly and sound more natural in academic or professional Spanish. Teaching capitalization differences is especially important for bilingual learners who tend to transfer English rules into Spanish writing.
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