Lesson Transcript

Hi, everybody. My name is Alisha. In this lesson, I'm going to talk about how to use capital letters in English. This lesson is going to cover the very basic ways that we use capital letters in English. There are many, many different rules to think about but these are the most important. So, let's take a look. Okay.
First, I want to take a look at this part of the board. This part of the board includes what are called proper nouns. A proper noun is different from a regular noun, so, not a proper noun, because a proper noun refers to the specific name of a person, the name of a place, or the name of a thing. So, when we use a proper noun in our writing, we always need to capitalize the words in the proper nouns.
So, let's start with some very simple and easy examples. When we write the names of people, their first name, their middle name, their last name, we always capitalize the first letter in the name, in the first part of the name, and the first part of the second name, and third name, and fourth name, if they have many names. We always capitalize the first letter. For example, Barack Obama. We capitalize the B in Barack and the O in Obama. We can do the same thing for an artist name. So, in this case, I have the performer, Lady Gaga. So, her performance name is Lady, we put the L as a capital letter, and the G in Gaga is also a capital letter. So, even if it's not the person's real name, we still use this same rule for performer's name. Here's one more popular actor, Tom Cruise. We use capital T for Tom and capital C in Cruise.
So, you can do the same thing with your name. When you write your name, make sure you always use a capital letter for the first letter of your name. So, first name, middle name, last name, and of course, if you have many names, make sure to use a capital letter for each of those as well. Okay.
Let's move on to the next group. So, we also use this rule for the names of places. And, when I say places, I mean a lot of different types of place, for example, cities, countries, streets, neighborhoods, and so on. So, if there's a specific name for the place where you live or the place where you're going, we use that with a capital letter.
However, it's important to note when I say places, I don't mean type of building. So, for example, supermarket or bank, these don't get capital letters. Those are just general place types. When we talk about the name of a place, we use this rule.
So, let's look at some examples. First, San Francisco, San Francisco. This is a city name. So, the S in San and the F in Francisco get capitalized, San Francisco. The next one, Amsterdam, is a city name as well. We put a capital A in Amsterdam.
Next, one more city name. This is Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro. You'll notice here, perhaps, the R is capital, and the J is a capital. This little d though is not. So, this is one, and we'll see this later, this is one kind of exception to this capitalization rule. And, we'll see this in some other examples later. These very small connecting words like prepositions, for example, and conjunctions, we generally do not capitalize these words even when they're part of a proper noun. We'll see more examples of this later. But this is one example in a city name. We typically don't capitalize that little d. We capitalize the R and the J. So, these connecting words typically don't become big letters. Okay.
Next one is another country, Thailand, Thailand. The T here is capitalized. And, here's one example of a street. I have 1st Street. So, when you write the name of the street, we typically use, in this case, it's just a number, we use a capital letter here, and we use a capital letter before the street name. You might also see this with avenue, for example, like, 1st Avenue. You might see first also written as F-I-R-S-T. In that case, you would use a capital F in First. So, we follow this capitalization rule for names of places, big places and small places. Okay.
Let's move on to the next group. The next group is names of organizations, names of organizations. What is an organization here? Organizations, for example, this means companies, schools, government offices, and so on. So, when you talk about a brand, for example, if you want to talk about your favorite clothing brand, your favorite accessories brand, and so on, we use the company category for that. It follows this kind of capitalization rule.
So, let's look at some examples of this. First one, The University of Washington, The University of Washington. Here we have the first letter capitalized, The, the U in university. This little "of" is not capitalized, like we saw in Rio de Janeiro. These little connection words, we typically do not make them capital. We don't make the first letter capital. And, finally, Washington, the W here. So, the keywords are capitalized. Okay.
Here, our next example is Microsoft, Microsoft. This is a company name. When we write Microsoft in text, we always write it with a capital letter, so, Microsoft. Other companies get the same treatment. When we write the name of the company, like Google or Apple, and so on, we use a capital letter here. Okay.
Next, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art. So, this is an organization. Perhaps, it's also the name of a place, too. Maybe, there's an organization with the same name. But, we have capital letters, Metropolitan, Museum, and Art. And, again, we have this little "of." We don't need to capitalize the o here. So, again, we're capitalizing the keywords in the name.
Finally, we have National Public Radio, National Public Radio. This is the name of an organization. All the letters, the first letters, are capital, NPR, you might also hear this called. So, we follow this capitalization rule for organization names. Schools means elementary schools, it means universities, high schools, colleges, technical schools, and many different government offices. It can mean artistic organizations, and so on.
If you're not sure, if you find something online you want to write about, and you're not sure, just try to Google that thing. Look for the home page. And, usually, on the home page, you can find the way they write their organization name. So, if you're not sure, that's a really good way to check. Okay.
Let's move on to our next one. The next category is titles of artistic works, titles of artistic works. Again, the important words here. This one is maybe the most important one to consider in terms of not capitalizing the small words. But, first, what does the artistic work mean? An artistic work means movies, music, books, other types of literature, something artistic, something creative that someone has created, a sculpture, a painting, and so on, art pieces. So, the names, the titles of artistic works are also capitalized.
For example, "War and Peace," "War and Peace." This is a very famous book. So, War, W, is capitalized. Peace is also capitalized. Again, notice this "and," this connecting word is not capitalized. So, again, the important words, as we've seen a few times so far, we capitalized these big keywords in the title.
Next one, "The Lord of the Rings," "The Lord of the Rings." So, this is a very popular book series and a very popular movie series, and, there's also merchandise. So, we have T, L, and R capitalized here, again, the keywords. These two, "of" and "the" are not capitalized. Again, these kind of just give us some connection here. You might think, "Well, why is this T capitalized? But, this T isn't capitalized?" We always capitalize the first letter. That's a good guideline to have. We're always going to capitalize the first letter in something. But, generally, when we have these other ones, these other "the" or maybe "a" in our titles of artistic works, we do not capitalize them. Okay.
Next one, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." This is a very famous story for kids. Again, we have our capital letters for the keywords. Our little preposition does not need a capital letter, just the A in Alice, the A in Adventures, and the W in Wonderland. So, again, if you're not sure how you should capitalize your artistic work, a Google search is usually a really good way to see the correct way to capitalize it. Okay.
Let's move on to the other side of the board now. The other side has some general tips for other things aside from proper nouns and the names of works, the names of organizations. So, other things you should always make sure to capitalize are days, months, and holidays. So, for example, Tuesday, that's a day of the week. We always capitalize days of the week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Always make sure to capitalize those words. Our months, in this case, I have September, as the example. Always capitalize the months of the year, April, May, June. All of those should be capitalized when you write them.
Next, holidays, we have Labor Day and Halloween here as examples. Labor Day is two words, but we capitalize both of the first letters L in Labor and D in Day. So, if you have a holiday in your country as well that has more than one word in it, make sure you use a capital letter for the first letter of each word. Halloween, again, the H in Halloween is capitalized. So, when you talk about these holidays, days of the week, and months, make sure you use those capital letters. Okay.
Lastly, the very last point, make sure to capitalize the first letter in a sentence. Always capitalize the first letter in your sentence. For example, "I went to the store." The I is capitalized. "He wrote a message." The H is capitalized. "They left," very short sentence, but the T still has to be capitalized to be correct. So, make sure always, always, always, you capitalize the first letter in a sentence.
So, you might think to yourself though, "But, I see on social media all the time, people don't use capital letters. Some people never use capital letters. What's that?" On social media, the rules are a bit different. On social media, we're not so strict. We often forget, or we often make mistakes, or we often just don't care about writing exactly perfectly. Or, for some people, it's just their style. But, if you want to make absolutely sure to always write correctly, you should follow these basic rules for capitalization. So, make sure you always start with a capital letter.
You might also think to yourself, "Well, sometimes, I go to websites. And, it seems like they have capital letters used for the important words like if I'm looking for something to buy, it seems that they capitalize the keywords about the product." And, yes, that's also something that some companies and some organizations choose to do. They want to try to make the product stand out, or they want to make keywords stand out more. But, technically, this is incorrect to do. It's just, again, one person or one organization style. And, to write correctly, you should make sure not to do that. But, this is the reason that you might see these kinds of things.
So, this is a very good, very general, and very basic guide to the fundamental, the most basic ways to capitalize in English. Thanks very much for watching this lesson, and I will see you again soon. Bye.

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