Capital and small letters
In Spanish, capital letters are used at the beginning of the sentence and for proper names: Place and country names, persons, authorities, institutions, subjects of study, historical and religious names. Capital letters are also used after a colon and for abbreviations in the salutation. In the case of film titles and novels, only the initial letter is capitalised.
Examples:
| Carlos | male first name | |
| Barcelona | City in Catalonia | |
| Venezuela | Country in South America | |
| Biología | Field of study | |
| el Ministerio de Salud | the Ministry of Health | |
| Internet | Internet | |
| la Policía | the polices | |
| Instituto Nacional de Estadística | National Statistical Office | |
| la Unión Europea | the European Union | |
| Pascua | Eastern | |
| la Cruz Roja | the Red Cross | |
| Pequeña Edad de Hielo | Little Ice Age | |
| Querido Franco: Te escribo para… | Dear Franco, I write you… | |
| Sr., Sra., Srta., Ud./Vd., D., Dña. | señor, señora, señorita, usted, don, doña | |
| La fiesta del chivo | The Feast of the Goat (Novel)
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Small letters
Month names, weekdays, seasons, cardinal points and names of geographical origin are written in lower case.
Examples:
| enero | January | |
| lunes | Monday | |
| la primavera | Springtime | |
| el norte | North | |
| un chileno | a Chilean
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