Capitalization for beginners

capitalization proper adjectives proper nouns titles

Capitalization is to write the first letter of a word in uppercase. In this lesson, you will learn all the rules about this subject.

beginner intermediate advanced

What Is Capitalization?

When we write the first letter of a word in uppercase and the other letters in lowercase, it is called capitalization.

Capitalization: Types

There are many cases in which we use capitalization. Here are two of them:

At the beginning of the sentence
Proper nouns

Now, let us discuss each separately:

Beginning of the Sentence

We must write the first letter of the first word of every sentence in uppercase. When we put a 'period' at the end of one sentence, another starts after it. So, we must capitalize it. Look at the examples below:

The girl is there. She is looking at me. Can you see her?

As you can see, the type of the sentence does not matter.

Our families don't like each other.

Proper Nouns

Proper nouns are words that refer to specific things. We use proper nouns for names of people, animals, places, etc. The position of the proper noun in the sentence is not important; its first letter must always be in uppercase. Look:

I saw Molly by the river.

As you can see, only the first letter of the name is capitalized.

I thought you were at Barney's.

'Barney' is the name of a place.

Warning!

Remember not to capitalize all the letters of a word. Compare:

Can you see Mary? ✓

Can you see MARY? ❌