Look at these examples to see how capital letters and apostrophes are used.
India celebrates Independence Day on 15 August.
Adam speaks English, Arabic and some Persian.
It's really cold today! They say it'll snow tonight.
Jane's staying at her parents' house this week.
Try this exercise to test your grammar.
- Grammar test 1
Grammar explanation
Capitalisation
There are lots of times when you need to use capital letters – for example, to start a sentence or for the pronoun I. Here are some other important rules for using them.
Days, months and holidays
We capitalise days of the week, months and festivals, but not seasons.
His birthday party is on Thursday.
Schools are closed at Christmas.
It rains a lot in April and May, but the summer is very dry.
Names of people and places
We capitalise the names of people and places, including streets, planets, continents and countries.
Bea Jankowski has lived on Church Street in Manchester for 20 years.
The Earth is the third planet from the Sun.
Russia is in both Europe and Asia.
Words that come from the names of places – for example languages, nationalities and adjectives that refer to people or things from a country, region or city – are capitalised. We also capitalise nouns and adjectives that come from the names of religions.
Some Canadians speak French.
Londoners eat a lot of Indian food.
Most Muslims fast during the day for Ramadan.
Titles and names of institutions
The names of organisations and usually the important words in book and film titles are capitalised. When a person's job title goes before their name, capitalise both. If the title is separate from their name, capitalise only their name.
Salome Zourabichvili, the president of Georgia, is visiting President Alvi tomorrow.
The chief executive officer lives in New York.
We are reading War and Peace with Ms Ioana, our teacher.
Apostrophes
We use an apostrophe to show a contraction or possession.
Contractions
We use an apostrophe to show where there are missing letters in contractions.
It's raining. (It's = It is)
Don't worry, it won't rain. (Don't = Do not; won't = will not)
She can't drive because she's broken her leg. (can't = cannot; she's = she has)
I'd like a coffee, please. (I'd = I would)
You'll be fine. (You'll = You will)
** Note that it's is a contraction of it is or it has. its is a possessive form of the pronoun it.
The dog is chasing its tail.
Are you sure it's OK for me to ring you so early?
It's rained a lot this week.
Possession
We also use an apostrophe with the letter s after a noun (normally a person, animal or group) to show that the noun owns someone or something.
My cat's favourite toy is a small, red ball.
Sadiq's parents live in Liverpool.
South Korea's economy is growing.
Singular or plural
We use 's when the possessor is singular.
Marie's mother is going to Hong Kong.
We also use 's when the possessor is a plural noun that does not end in s.
The People's Republic of China
My cousin writes children's books.
When a plural noun ends in s, we put the apostrophe after the s (s').
This is a picture of my parents' house.
Our friend's new car is red. She just got it yesterday.
Our friends' new car is red. They just got it yesterday.
When a singular noun ends in s, we generally use 's.
James's brother-in-law is German.
He has a collection of Dickens's novels.
Do this exercise to test your grammar again.
- Grammar test 2
Hi
do we write a capital letter in pronouns ?
Hi Jameel.101,
No, we don't use a capital letter for pronouns (except if it is the first word in the sentence).
Jonathan
LearnEnglish team
Hi,
Could you please help me, I have some doubts regarding capital letters
The British Royal Family or the British royal family
King Charles, The King ( Charles), the king
He served in the Navy ... He served in The Royal Navy, or He served in the navy.
Thank you so much
Hello aeg,
I'm afraid there's no simple answer to this, as different publishers prefer different options. In general, though, most of the time people capitalise the title when it goes with the name, so, for example, 'King Charles' is correct and 'king Charles' is not. But if we are simply referring to the position, often we don't capitalise, e.g. 'I saw the king on the telly'. Or he served in the navy (no title) or He served in the Royal Navy (official title).
As far as I understand, at the British Council and in other organisations, however, we do capitalise titles without names -- so we say 'the King', for example. You can see some examples of this on this page if you're interested.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
"The poet depicts the love of a mother bird for her young one's who are very small and only a few days old."
Please correct this sentence and also give reason.
Hello Jasim Raza,
'young one's' is not correct in this case because there is no possession. This phrase is an object of the preposition 'for' that refers to the mother's children, so it should be 'young ones'.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello,
Which of these two sentences are correct and why?
How will I apply apostrophe rule here to non living things?
My school name is xyz.
My school's name is xyz.
Can I write - My city's name is xyz
Hello SaraZaber,
I would say 'The name of my school is XYZ', though I wouldn't say it's wrong to say 'my school's name'. The same is true of 'The name of my city', though in this case 'My city's name' sounds a little more unnatural.
As the explanation above points out, normally we use 's in this way with people, animals or groups of people. One can certainly conceive of a school or city as a group of people, but in the end, people tend to speak one way or another. It's also important to consider what the purpose of the sentence is, that is, why you are saying it. This could influence the best way to say it.
Hope this helps you.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
I think the correct sentence is the second one.
Hi,
During the course you explain:
When a plural noun ends in s, we put the apostrophe after the s (s').
In your example, we talk about "our friends", in the plural, and in this case, we put the apostrophe at the end:
Our friends' new car is red. They just got it yesterday
In the second grammar test, we have a similar case:
All ___ accessories are on sale today.
women's
women
Here the answer is women's, and I can't understand why, as we refer to accessories for women in plural.
Thanks