{"id":40260,"date":"2025-11-03T10:15:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T09:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ihmadrid.com\/?p=40260"},"modified":"2025-11-04T11:18:26","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T10:18:26","slug":"capital-letters-in-spanish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ihmadrid.com\/en\/blog\/capital-letters-in-spanish.html","title":{"rendered":"Rules for capitalisation in Spanish"},"content":{"rendered":"

Capitalisation in Spanish follows a different logic from what you may be used to in English.<\/b> 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u2019ll find that Spanish capitalisation is actually simpler and easier to master.<\/span><\/p>\n

In this <\/span>guide to Spanish capitalisation rules<\/b>, we\u2019ll walk you through when to use capitals in Spanish, while you\u2019ll also discover eight categories which remain lowercase in Spanish even though English capitalises them. Let\u2019s take a look!<\/span><\/p>\n

Lowercase in Spanish vs uppercase in Spanish: When should Spanish be capitalised?\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n

As we begin this discussion of capitalisation rules for Spanish, <\/span>it\u2019s 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. <\/b>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.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite preferring lowercase, there are still several situations where a capital letter is required in Spanish. Here we\u2019ll outline <\/span>the five main situations in Spanish which require a capital letter<\/b>, along with some examples:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The first word in a sentence\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n

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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n