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00:05So, in this lesson we are going to discuss rules related to capitalization in English.
00:11This means I'll teach you when to use capital or uppercase letters in a word or sentence.
00:17So for example, A, B, and C, these are all capital letters, or uppercase letters, as
00:25opposed to A, B, and C, which are lowercase letters.
00:32So rule number one, always capitalize the first word of a sentence.
00:38So whenever you start a new sentence, you always have to capitalize the first word.
00:45So for example, the man worked late last night.
00:49Why are you looking at me?
00:52Let's go to the cinema.
00:54Should we get a coffee?
00:56You'll notice that the first word is capitalized in each and every one of these sentences.
01:05So every time you end a sentence with whatever punctuation mark, whether it's a period or
01:12a question mark, when you begin a new sentence, you have to capitalize the first word.
01:18So if this sentence was, the man worked late last night, you would have a period and the
01:22next sentence could be, capital W, where was he, for example.
01:30The second rule is you always need to capitalize names and other proper nouns.
01:36So always capitalize proper nouns in English, and if you don't know what a proper noun is, a proper
01:44noun is a specific, so not a generic, name for a particular person, place, or thing.
01:52Proper nouns are always capitalized in English, no matter where they fall in a sentence.
01:59The names of cities, countries, nationalities, companies, religions, and political parties are also proper nouns, so you should capitalize them
02:09too.
02:11So for example, a common noun would be girl, a proper noun would be a name of a girl.
02:18So for example, Jennifer, you would have to capitalize the J in Jennifer.
02:23A common noun would be a city, proper noun, Toronto, which is the name of the city.
02:30So you have to capitalize the T, a day, Friday, again with a capital, a month, December, a nationality, Canadian,
02:44religion, Christian, okay?
02:47So for common nouns, you do not have to capitalize girl, city, day, month, nationality, religion, but a proper noun,
02:56you do have to capitalize.
02:58When it is a specific name for a particular person, place, or thing.
03:06So here are some more examples.
03:09She lives in India.
03:11Again, the she is capitalized because it's the first word of the sentence, and India we have to capitalize because
03:18it's the name of a country.
03:21I saw Michael at this Chinese restaurant in London.
03:26Chinese is a nationality.
03:28Michael is a name.
03:30And this is the first letter of the sentence, and also it's the word I, which we always capitalize.
03:37Do you have to work on Friday?
03:39My meeting is in June.
03:44My meeting is in June.
03:47Lauren works at Amazon.
03:49Amazon is the name of a company, so you have to capitalize the name because it's a proper noun.
03:56So again, like we said before, you have to capitalize cities, countries, nationalities, and languages because they are all proper
04:06nouns.
04:06So you can see all of these examples of cities, Paris, Rome, New York, Vancouver, Dubai.
04:13We have to capitalize all of these because they are countries, Canada, China, India, Pakistan.
04:20We have to capitalize nationalities, Canadian, Australian, Japanese, Dutch.
04:26And we have to capitalize languages as well.
04:30English, French, Spanish.
04:34No, this one gets a little bit more complicated.
04:38We have to capitalize the first word of a quote when the quote is a complete sentence.
04:46So, for example, Joe asked, you have a comma and quotation marks, is Brian going to the meeting on Friday?
04:58So, because this quote is a complete sentence, we have to capitalize the first word of the quote.
05:07Again, he can't go.
05:10He's busy that night, Mary replied.
05:13Again, we would capitalize this because it's the first word of the quote.
05:20And this is a full sentence.
05:25Okay, now this is what you should not capitalize.
05:29Do not capitalize seasons.
05:31A lot of people make a mistake and capitalize the seasons.
05:35And, of course, the seasons are spring, summer, fall, or autumn, and winter.
05:48So, the names of days, months, and holidays are proper nouns.
05:52So, you should capitalize them.
05:54So, for example, I don't like Valentine's Day.
05:57You would capitalize the V in Valentine's and the D in Day because that's the name of the holiday.
06:04It's Valentine's Day.
06:06My birthday is in March.
06:08Capitalize this because it's a month.
06:10I start work on Monday.
06:12We capitalize the M because it's a day of the week.
06:16However, we never capitalize seasons unless it was the start of a sentence.
06:21So, I enjoy Christmas every winter.
06:25Winter, no capital letter, lowercase.
06:27My favorite thing about the fall is Halloween.
06:31Again, we'd capitalize the C in Christmas because it's a holiday.
06:36We capitalize the H in Halloween because it's a holiday.
06:40It's a proper noun.
06:42And I love spring.
06:45Again, lowercase letter because we do not capitalize seasons.
06:51Okay, rule number five.
06:54We capitalize most words in titles.
06:57The capitalization rules for titles of books, movies, and other works can change depending on style guides.
07:05Generally, you should capitalize the first word, all nouns, verbs, adjectives, and proper nouns.
07:14That means you should lowercase articles, conjunctions, and prepositions.
07:20But here's a note.
07:22Some style guides say to capitalize conjunctions and prepositions that are longer than five letters.
07:29Okay?
07:30So, here's some examples.
07:32I love watching The Lord of the Rings.
07:35So, we're going to capitalize this first T in The because it is the first word of the title.
07:45So, we have to capitalize it if it's a title.
07:48We have to capitalize the first word.
07:51Then, we capitalize Lord because it's a noun of the rings.
07:57Also, we capitalize rings because it's a noun.
08:00But we would not capitalize of and the.
08:03We do not capitalize articles, conjunctions, and prepositions.
08:10Okay?
08:11So, look here.
08:13Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
08:16We don't capitalize and.
08:19Again, it's a conjunction.
08:20The because it's an article.
08:22And then, of because it's a preposition.
08:25So, we only capitalize these names.
08:28Harry Potter and Goblet of Fire because they're nouns.
08:32My favorite show is Game of Thrones.
08:36Again, capitalize this and this because they are nouns.
08:42And also, this is the first word of the title.
08:46And we do not capitalize of because it's a preposition.
08:51Okay, number six.
08:53Always capitalize the pronoun I.
08:55A common mistake of English language learners is to forget to capitalize the pronoun I.
09:01examples, Larry is going to order fish and I am going to order steak.
09:06You always, always have to capitalize I.
09:09You should never have a sentence with an I like this as a word.
09:15You cannot say, I am tired.
09:18You always have to capitalize this and make this a capital.
09:21Always.
09:23Do you think I should talk to her?
09:25Again, capitalized.
09:26We should go, but I'll call you later on.
09:29Again, this is capitalized.
09:32I'll, if you, say I'm, I'll, I'd.
09:39All of these should be capital I.
09:42Okay?
09:42Always capitalize the pronoun I.
09:46Now, capitalize the official title of a person when used with that person's name.
09:52So, what that means, before we were talking about titles, like titles of books, or movies, or articles.
10:00Now we're talking about the official title of a person.
10:04So, for example, doctor, mister, professor.
10:08So, look at this first sentence.
10:11I think Dr. Smith is really friendly and professional.
10:15So, we would capitalize the doctor like this with a capital D because we're using the title right before his
10:24name.
10:24If we had the full version and wrote Dr. Smith like this, we would still capitalize the D because it's
10:31used with his name.
10:33We're specifying what doctor because that would be a proper noun.
10:38We're saying Dr. Smith.
10:40Okay?
10:41But then, if someone responded and said, yes, she is a great doctor, we would not capitalize this D because
10:48this would just be a general, a common noun.
10:52She's a great doctor.
10:54We're not referring to her as her title as Dr. Smith.
10:59Okay, the next one.
11:01Many people miss President Obama.
11:04We're using the official title right before his name.
11:07Well, I guess now he's not President Obama, but a lot of people will still call him that.
11:13So, we would capitalize the P because it's the official title of Obama, President Obama.
11:20And then, if you said, I don't like our current president, we would not capitalize the P here because this
11:26is a common noun.
11:28We're not using this word with the name of the president.
11:32Okay?
11:32Other titles you would always have to capitalize, you would see a lot.
11:37Mr.
11:39For example, Mr. Thomas, who would always capitalize the Mr. like this.
11:45Ms. Smith.
11:47Mrs.
11:49Ms.
11:51And so forth.
11:54Okay, and now it's time for us to do some practice and see what you have learned.
11:58So, I have four different sentences here, and I have put no capital letters in any of these sentences.
12:04What I would like you to do is take a piece of paper, or just go to the YouTube comments
12:10section, and try to write out the sentences, capitalizing the proper letters, or just on a piece of paper, besides
12:19your computer or your phone, jot down which letters you think should be capitalized, or which words should be capitalized.
12:26Okay, so I'm going to read you all the sentences, and then I want you to try to capitalize them
12:33correctly.
12:34You can go back in the video and try to refresh your memory for certain things, and then I'll tell
12:39you the answers at the end.
12:41Okay.
12:42Joe asked, what is everyone doing on Friday?
12:46His birthday is in October, in the fall.
12:50My favorite book is Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.
12:55She is English, but she speaks French perfectly.
12:59Okay, you can pause the video if you want to take some time to think which should be capitalized, and
13:07I'm going to go ahead and show you right now what you should capitalize in these sentences.
13:12So, Joe should be capitalized.
13:16Joe, first of all, it's the first word in a sentence, so it should always be capitalized.
13:22But Joe is also a name, a proper noun, so you always have to capitalize a name.
13:28The next one we should capitalize is what.
13:31That's because it's the first word in a quote, in a quote that's a complete sentence.
13:38So we have to capitalize the W.
13:40And the last one is F for Friday, because we capitalize the days of the week.
13:47The next one.
13:48We capitalize his, because it's the first word in a sentence.
13:53We capitalize the O in October, because it's a month.
13:57We do not capitalize the F in fall, because remember, it's a season.
14:04The next one, we capitalize M, because it's the first word in a sentence.
14:10And now, here we have a title, Pride and Prejudice.
14:13So we're going to capitalize the P, because it's the first word of the title.
14:18We're going to capitalize this P, because it is the last word of the title, and also because it's a
14:25noun.
14:26Pride and Prejudice.
14:28By Jane Austen.
14:30Capitalize the J and the A, because that is the author's name.
14:34It's her name.
14:35In the last sentence, we capitalize the S in she, again, because it's the first word of the sentence.
14:42And now, we're going to capitalize the E in English, because this is a nationality.
14:46She is English.
14:48But she speaks French perfectly.
14:51We're going to say, capital F for French, because that is a language.
14:58So there were 13 words that we had to capitalize in this.
15:02Let me know how many you got out of 13.
15:05And you can put that in the comment section.
15:07And let me know which ones you didn't get right, which ones you did get right,
15:11and how successful you were with this practice.
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