Capitalisation in Spanish follows a different logic from what you may be used to in English. Both languages capitalise the first word of a sentence and proper nouns such as the names of people or places, but in many other cases Spanish chooses lowercase where English would use uppercase.
For native English speakers, this often feels unusual at first, so many words that would be capitalised in English remain lowercase in Spanish. But once you get familiar with the rules, you’ll find that Spanish capitalisation is actually simpler and easier to master.
In this guide to Spanish capitalisation rules, we’ll walk you through when to use capitals in Spanish, while you’ll also discover eight categories which remain lowercase in Spanish even though English capitalises them. Let’s take a look!
As we begin this discussion of capitalisation rules for Spanish, it’s important to note that lowercase is much more common in Spanish than it is in English. Or, put another way, uppercase is much less common in Spanish compared to English. Generally, there is less need to emphasise words with a capital letter in Spanish. A paragraph of Spanish will typically have fewer capital letters sprinkled throughout, which can affect how headlines, business names, formal writing and more appear when translated.
Despite preferring lowercase, there are still several situations where a capital letter is required in Spanish. Here we’ll outline the five main situations in Spanish which require a capital letter, along with some examples:
Just as in most other languages, the first word in a new sentence starts with a capital letter in Spanish. This is to help signal to the reader the beginning of a new thought or statement.
Names of specific people, places or things always take a capital letter as the first letter, in order to distinguish them from common nouns.
Official abbreviations and acronyms appear in all caps or with an initial capital to ensure clarity and recognition, such as abbreviations of titles and honorifics or acronyms for institutions.
Festivals and eras keep their capital letters in Spanish, even when they appear mid-sentence.
Spanish titles of creative works, such as books, films, songs and more, use some capitalisation. Usually only the first word is capitalised, although any other proper nouns would also take a capital letter for the reasons outlined above. This is more succinct than other languages which capitalise most words in an artistic title.
As mentioned above, there are several instances where a word would be written fully lowercase in Spanish but would have the first letter in uppercase in English. These words can be summed up across eight categories, which we’ll look at below along with some examples:
Unlike English, Spanish writes weekdays fully in lowercase unless they begin a sentence.
The names of months also remain in lowercase in Spanish unless they come at the start of a sentence.
In Spanish, adjectives of nationality take lowercase, and this also applies to adjectives derived from place names, such as those used to describe food.
The names of languages start with a capital letter in English but not when written in Spanish.
Many religious words are capitalised in English, but they remain lowercase in Spanish. Even personal religious titles are lowercase in Spanish when not attached to a name.
Common geographic descriptors, such as mountain, river or ocean, can remain lowercase in Spanish, even when attached to a specific place. Proper names, however, are capitalised.
We saw above that the first word of an artistic work is capitalised in Spanish. In English, that is also true and also capitalised are the other main words of the title, whether or not they are proper nouns. In Spanish, however, it’s usually just the first word that takes a capital.
In English, titles such as “Doctor” are capitalised when placed before someone’s name or used in direct address. In Spanish, the comparable titles remain lowercase.
Whereas many words are capitalised in English but not in Spanish, the reverse is rare because most uppercase words in Spanish are also uppercase in English. One exception appears with formal correspondence, as pronouns of respect can be capitalised when abbreviated. These pronouns, such as Ud. or Uds., don’t exist in English, but are capitalised in the abbreviated form in Spanish. For example:
By mastering the nuances of Spanish capitalisation rules, you’ll be able to convey respect, clarity and authenticity through your written Spanish, helping you to integrate into the language and the culture.
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