Spanish capitalization rules that differ from English
Published on September 8, 2023
Spanish capitalization rules are not quite the same as those in English. In Spanish, the first letter in a new sentence is capitalized. So is the first letter of a proper noun, such as the name of a specific person or place. That’s about it for capital letters in Spanish.
Native English speakers often find that Spanish contains fewer capitalized letters than they are used to. In many places where English capitalizes letters, Spanish does not. At first, it might be difficult to remember the differences between English and Spanish capitalization rules. But once you get the hang of it, your Spanish writing abilities will be significantly improved.
To speak about capitalization, let’s start with the basic terms:
You can use these terms to talk about how to spell words, like so:
Now that you know the terminology, let’s talk about the rules. The only two rules for capitalization in Spanish are straightforward: Capitalize the first letter of a sentence, and capitalize the first letter of a proper noun. That’s all.
Proper nouns include names of people, places and specific things:
Now that you know the basic rules for capitalization in Spanish, let’s take a look at some examples.
Titles such as señor (mister), señora (madam) and doctor/a are not capitalized, unless used in abbreviated form. For example:
Each word of a newspaper title is capitalized, but only the first word of a book’s title is capitalized. For example:
There are a few significant differences between English and Spanish capitalization rules. In general, English capitalizes words more frequently. Let’s compare.
You’ll notice that neither English nor Spanish capitalizes the articles below. This applies to titles as well.
Spanish language learners must adjust from their usual English capitalization rules, as English and Spanish capitalization rules are similar in only a few situations. Proper names of people and places are capitalized in both. The same is true for abbreviations and for the first word in a sentence. But there are big differences, too. Are you surprised that book titles aren’t fully capitalized in Spanish? What other rules surprise you about Spanish capitalization?