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
Hello Dzibaan,
That's a good question! Note that the plural noun women does not end in s. This is the reason that the possessive form is women's and not *womens'.
In the same way, the possessive form of men is men's and that of children is children's.
Note, however, that other irregular plural nouns that do end in s have s' for their possessive ending: thief (singular), thieves (plural), thieves' honour (possessive s' on plural noun) or wife (singular), wives (plural), an old wives' tale (possessive s' on plural noun).
Hope that makes sense.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello. In a book, I have read the following piece of information and two examples:
"Don’t use a hyphen if the compound adjective follows the noun it describes.
- Smart phones are widely used all over the world.
- The Arabic language is widely spoken in all the villages.
First: Is this correct?
Second: Can I write these compound adjectives coming after nouns with hyphens?
- Smart phones are widely-used all over the world.
- The Arabic language is widely-spoken in all the villages.
Thank you.
Hello Ahmed Imam,
It's true that when the adjective follows the noun (and a verb such as 'be') then there is no hyphen. There is also no hyphen even before the noun when the adverb ends in -ly.
You can find a good summary of the rules here:
https://proofreading.org/blog/how-to-use-hyphens-in-academic-writing/
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello. Could you please help me? I have just read the following quote:
"In British English, full stops are placed outside the final quotation mark.
Ex: - The general manager said, ”This is a great day for the company”.
Is this information correct?
Thank you.
Hi Ahmed Imam,
Actually, it depends on what is being quoted.
I hope that helps.
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello. Thank you for your reply.
Could you provide a link for these explanations from the BBC and Lexico (Oxford Dictionary).
Thank you.
Hi Ahmed Imam,
Actually, they are already linked in the message above. Just click on BBC and Lexico.
Best wishes,
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Nice
Hello GiulianaAndy,
This is a question of convention rather than grammatical rule. The convention is that grammar words (articles, prepostions and conjunctions) tend not to be capitalised, but different writers/publishers may vary in terms of the style they prefer.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team