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There are many cases where English uses capital letters (e.g. January) but Spanish uses lowercase (e.g. enero). Grammar or orthography books have long lists of all the cases where capital letters are used. But I thought it would be useful to see a comparison between capitalization rules in English and Spanish?

What are the cases where English uses capital letters but Spanish uses lowercase (e.g. months, days of the week)? I assume it is a relatively short list.

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Based from here:

  • Calendar (days of the week and months)

    Hoy es martes. — Today is Tuesday.

    Iremos el próximo julio. — We'll go next July.

  • Composition titles

    La guerra de las galaxias. — Star Wars.

  • Personal titles (Note that abbrevations of personal titles are capitalized: Sr., Sra., Dr.)

    ¿Está comiendo la señora Smith? — Is Mrs. Smith eating?

    La reina Victoria fue mi abuela. — Queen Victoria was my grandmother.

  • Religions

    Mi madre es católica. — My mother is Catholic.

  • Ordinal numbers (after a name)

    Luis XIV (Luis catorce). — Luis the Fourteenth.

  • Place names

    Vivimos cerca de la montaña Rainier. — We live near Mount Rainier.

  • Nationalities

    Soy chino. — I'm Chinese.

  • Languages

    Él habla polaco. — He speaks Polish.

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    though it's correct just point out that the ordinals after the names are 99% of times written like: "Luis XIV" instead of "Luis catorce"
    – Juanillo
    Feb 13, 2012 at 18:52
  • I might have chosen “el río Guadalquivir” instead of Mount Rainier for an example. And those aren’t exactly pure toponyms. It’s when it has a geographic feature attached to it, like “el mar Mediterráneo”, where the name itself is a proper name and thus capitalized, but the geologic feature is not.
    – tchrist
    Feb 19, 2012 at 16:15
  • @Juanillo: With that change integrated into the answer, the example doesn't make much sense in context any more.
    – O. R. Mapper
    Aug 1, 2017 at 8:32
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Months and week days

  • Today is Monday. (Hoy es lunes.)
  • Why is February the shortest month? (¿Por qué febrero es el mes más corto?)

Nationalities, languages and religions

  • He's French. (Él es francés.)
  • Jacob speaks Spanish. (Jacob habla español.)
  • Ana is Catholic (Ana es católica)

Titles in works

In Spanish, titles have the same rules as ordinary language, capitalizing only the first word with the exception of proper names that always are capitalized, while English capitalizes every word except prepositions and articles (unless the final word that always is capitalized no matter what morphological case.)

  • His favorite play is A Midsummer Night’s Dream. (Su obra favorita es El sueño de una noche de verano.)
  • I'm reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. (Estoy leyendo Alguien voló sobre el nido del cuco.)

Much more information in RAE site: (MAYÚSCULAS)

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  • +1 for the answer, I think the uses in dates, languages and nationalities are the most common in which you can see this difference. However, titles in books, magazines or printed works in general are a different thing. For example, a publication might have its own styling guidelines and require capital letters in titles of chapters, but not sections. When used consistently, it is not necessarily harmless or really disrespectful of the rules.
    – Janoma
    Feb 7, 2012 at 20:34
  • Thanks. Concerning the titles in books, with the exception of the cover when there may be a design constrain, there is actually a rule for capitalize only the 1st letter (except when the capital is required besides the fact is a title.) «Uso de las mayúsculas». Nueva ortografía de la lengua española, 2010. p.6. <tinyurl.com/yld76om>
    – pferor
    Aug 22, 2012 at 19:30
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Never forget this one : the Personal pronoun I is always capitalized in English, but yo is not always capitalized in Spanish.

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To expand a bit on the issue of geographic names, rule §4.7 in the Diccionario panhispánico de dudas explains:

Los nombres comunes genéricos que acompañan a los nombres propios geográficos (ciudad, río, mar, océano, sierra, cordillera, cabo, golfo, estrecho, etc.) deben escribirse con minúscula: la ciudad de Panamá, el río Ebro, la sierra de Gredos, la cordillera de los Andes, el cabo de Hornos. Solo si el nombre genérico forma parte del nombre propio, se escribe con mayúscula inicial: Ciudad Real, Río de la Plata, Sierra Nevada, los Picos de Europa. También se escriben con inicial mayúscula algunos de estos nombres genéricos cuando, por antonomasia, designan un lugar único y, por lo tanto, funcionan a modo de nombre propio. Estas antonomasias están lógicamente limitadas en su uso a la comunidad de hablantes que comparten una misma geografía, para los que la identificación de la referencia es inequívoca, como ocurre, por ejemplo, entre los chilenos, con la Cordillera (por la cordillera de los Andes) o, entre los españoles, con la Península (por el territorio peninsular español) o el Estrecho (por el estrecho de Gibraltar). El hecho de escribir Península Ibérica con mayúsculas se debe a que con esta expresión nos referimos a una entidad de carácter histórico-político, y no a un mero accidente geográfico.

I strongly recommend reading the entire section on Mayúsculas for more details about all using majuscules (meaning uppercase) in Spanish.

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    Just learned a new English word... majuscule :)
    – jrdioko
    Feb 20, 2012 at 1:20
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  1. In Spanish, names of Spanish days of the week and months of the year use lower-case letters
    Hoy es martes - Today is Tuesday

  2. In formal written Spanish, only the first word and proper nouns in titles of movies, books, plays, etc should be capitalized.
    La guerra de las galaxias - Star Wars

  3. Introductory titles are not capitalized in Spanish but their common abbreviations are.
    ¿Conoces a la señora Wilson? - Do you know Mrs. Wilson?

  4. Names of religions & their adherents aren't capitalized.
    Mi madre es católica - My mother is Catholic

  5. When an ordinal number is used after a name, it isn't capitalized
    Luis catorce - Luis the Fourteenth

  6. While the given name of lakes, rivers, mountains, and many other geographic features are capitalized, the place identifier is not.

  7. while names of cities and countries are capitalized in Spanish, words that derived from them are not.
    Prefiero los cocos puertorriqueños - I prefer the Puerto Rican coconuts

  8. Names of languages aren't capitalized
    E.g: Hablo inglés - I speak English

Reference here

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    Hello Ella, could you copy the relevant parts of the link? Link only answers are discouraged for this reason: While this link may answer the question, it is better to include the essential parts of the answer here and provide the link for reference. Link-only answers can become invalid if the linked page changes
    – fedorqui
    Jul 26, 2017 at 6:24
  • Really good answer
    – DGaleano
    Jul 26, 2017 at 19:24
  • Aunque esta no es una respuesta "link only", ya que trae las partes relevantes del sitio enlazado, tampoco tiene contenido propio. En el futuro intenta por favor añadir contenido propio en tus posts.
    – Diego
    Sep 6, 2017 at 16:38

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