📝 Capital Letters in English – A Complete Guide Capitalisation in English follows a more extensive set of rules than in many other languages, including Norwegian. Mastering these conventions is essential for formal writing, academic essays, and exam success. This guide covers every rule you need to know — with clear…
Faglig kvalitetssikret av lærere og toppstudenter · Følger læreplanen (LK20) · Sist oppdatert 2026-10-13
Capitalisation in English follows a more extensive set of rules than in many other languages, including Norwegian. Mastering these conventions is essential for formal writing, academic essays, and exam success. This guide covers every rule you need to know — with clear comparisons to Norwegian to help avoid common mistakes.
⚠️ Norwegian vs English – Key Differences
In Norwegian, many words that are capitalised in English are written in lowercase. This is the most common source of errors for Norwegian students writing in English. Pay special attention to nationalities, languages, days of the week, months, and religious terms — all of these require capital letters in English but not in Norwegian.
In English, the days of the week and months of the year are always capitalised. This is a significant difference from Norwegian, where these are written in lowercase (mandag, januar).
✅ Examples:
⚠️ Important exception: Seasons (spring, summer, autumn/fall, winter) are NOT capitalised unless they begin a sentence or are personified (e.g., "Old Man Winter arrived"). This is a common mistake.
Names of holidays, religious festivals, and designated special days are capitalised because they are treated as proper nouns — they refer to specific, unique events.
Note: Generic references to celebrations are not capitalised — e.g., "We had a birthday party" (lowercase) vs. "Happy Birthday!" (greeting/title).
All proper nouns — the specific names of people — are capitalised. Titles are capitalised when they appear directly before a person's name (as part of the name), but generally lowercased when used as common nouns. …