Uso de las Mayúsculas-When to Capitalized Part 2

Using Capitals after punctuation

In Spanish, we have to use capitals, when:

1.The first word after a period or the first word of writing:

Mañana no puedo ir. La semana que viene si puedo ir.

2. If the word follows an ellipsis (...), when they are located at the end of the sentence:
     Compramos ajo, camarones, vino........ La cena resultó un éxito.

But, if the ellipsis do not end the sentence, but instead there is more coming after, the word that follow the ellipsis will be written in small caps.
Estoy pensando que .....voy a ir; en esta ocasión debo de tomar el riesgo.

3. After a colon [:], you should use the capital in the following cases:

     a. After the colon placed at the head of a letter or greeting such as: 
Muy señor mío: / Le agradeceré...

     b. After the colon in Legal- administrative document: CERTIFICA: / Que D. Luis García Gonzalez ha seguido el Curso de Técnicas Audiovisuales...
c. After the colon that let us know what someone is going to say:
Rodolfo dijo: «No regreso hasta las once».

 4. In interrogative and exclamatory phrases:

                        a. If the question or the exclamation is all it is going to be said. That is they end the phrases:
                             ¿Qué hora es? Son las cuatro y treinta y cinco de la tarde. As you can see, the word after the question mark is capitalized.
                              ¡Qué miedo pasamos ayer! Se nos hizo de noche mientras bajábamos de los Teques.

                         b. If the question or the exclamation is the only part of what you want to say, then there are two other rules:
                                   1) The question or the exclamation are at the begining. In this case, the first letter after the sign is capitalized. ¿Qué hora es? and the one that follows the question mark ? is written in small caps ---¿Qué hora es?, son las cuatro y cuarenta y siete. This also happens when there are many short questions or exclamations that can be considered as unique and could be separated by comas or semi-colon.

¿Cómo te llamas?, ¿en qué trabajas?, ¿dónde naciste?

                                   2)  The question and exclamation mark are not located at the beginning of the writing, or follow other words that are part of the writing.

María, ¿puedes ayudarme?

Pero ¡qué alegría tan grande verte por aquí!

Uso de las Mayúsculas-When to Capitalized Part 1

The normal writing uses lower case letters, however, on certain occasions, words, phrases and entire texts can be written entirely in capital letters (as shown below); but the usual use of the capital letters is to be used at the beginning of the word and only modified depending on different factors.Now, let's go and learn when we use capital letters in Spanish.

1. Use capital letters when it follows the rules of accent marks: ÁFRICA, África.  Only when the abbreviation , that are written entirely in capital letters do not use an accent mark like in CIA, FBI, IBM, USA,etc.

2. When the letters ch, gu, ll and qu  are used in capital letters at the beginning of the word for the first letter and the rest in lower case like in  Chillida, Guinea, Llerena, Quevedo; but if the letters are part of a word which have been written in capital letters, then all the letters should be written in capital letters: CHILLIDA, GUINEA, LLERENA, QUEVEDO. When the letters are part of an acronym, then it is written with a capital letter the first letter of the word: PCCh (Partido Comunista de China). 

3. When writing the capital form of the letters  i and j do not place dots on top of them as in the lower case: Inés, Javier.

2. Using Capitals in Words and Complete Phrases

                           

                        a. Written in its entirety in capital letters  abbreviations and some acronyms: ISBN, OTI, ONG. Written in lower case, on the other hand, all the acronyms that by usage have become substantives like láser, radar, uvi. When the acronyms are proper nouns and have more than four letters, it is only written with a capital letter the first letter: Unicef, Unesco. 

                         b. Use the capital letters when you want to point out certain phrases or words in a writing. 

                             1)  Words or phrases that appear on the covers of books and the titles inside the books indicating parts, chapters and scenes. .

                             2) Newspaper and magazine headings: EL UNIVERSAL, LA NACIÓN, TIEMPO.

                             3) Monuments and tombstones inscriptions.

                             4) Administrative and judicial writings —decrees, sentences, proclamation, edicts, certificates or instances—, verb or verbs which present the main objective of the document: CERTIFICA, EXPONE, SOLICITA.

c) In texts with informative content, the phrases contained express the main message of the document:  Por orden expresa de la dirección, se comunica a todos los empleados que, a partir de ahora, ESTÁ PROHIBIDO FUMAR DENTRO DE LAS DEPENDENCIAS DE LA EMPRESA. (Orders from the administration states to all employees that from now on, IT IS FORBIDDEN TO SMOKE INSIDE THE COMPANY'S PREMISES.)

d) The words in signs to ensure visibility: SE RUEGA NO FUMAR; PROHIBIDO EL PASO.

More about the usage of Capital Letters in Spanish in future posts. In the meantime, have fun learning Spanish!!!