German capitalization: nouns and nominalizations
CEFR A1
What you will learn
- Recognise the pattern taught in “German capitalization: nouns and nominalizations” in a short example.
- Choose the appropriate form from “German capitalization: nouns and nominalizations” using explicit evidence.
- Apply and justify the rule from “German capitalization: nouns and nominalizations” in a new case.
The idea
In German, capitalization is functional: it marks sentence openings, proper names and, characteristically, every noun and word used as a noun.
Capitalize the first word of a sentence and proper names: Heute regnet es. Lara wohnt in Bonn. Also capitalize every common noun: der Tisch, die Frage, das Wetter. An article helps identify many nouns, but it is not an automatic test: an article may be omitted, and some words become nouns through their function.
A verb, adjective or another word can be nominalized. In zum Schwimmen, etwas Neues and im Allgemeinen, the word names an activity, thing or idea and is capitalized. Look for signals such as an article, a preposition–article contraction —am, beim, im, zum—, a quantifier or a noun function; always check the complete sentence.
Ordinary personal pronouns are lower-case unless they open a sentence. Formal Sie and its corresponding possessives are capitalized to distinguish them from sie. Days, months, languages and nationalities are nouns when used as such: Montag, August, Deutsch, Deutsche.
Do not replace the rule with “capitalize every important word”. Identify the function of each word, then apply official spelling to that function.
mayúscula obligatoria
| elemento | forma |
|---|---|
| 1 | inicio de oración |
| 2 | nombres propios |
| 3 | sustantivos comunes |
| 4 | palabras nominalizadas |
| 5 | Sie/Ihr de cortesía |
minúscula por defecto
| elemento | forma |
|---|---|
| 1 | verbos no nominalizados |
| 2 | adjetivos no nominalizados |
| 3 | pronombres personales ordinarios fuera del inicio |
How it sounds
- Morgen kauft Amir einen Kalender.The opening, proper name and two nouns follow distinct rules.
- Beim Kochen höre ich Musik.Kochen names the activity and is nominalized after beim.
- Sprechen Sie Deutsch?Sie is formal address and Deutsch is the name of a language.
Your turn
Two or three, to check that the bit above landed.
Wir treffen uns am ___.
Abend — After am, Abend functions as a noun and takes an initial capital.
Das ___ macht Spaß.
Lesen — The infinitive names an activity here and is nominalized by das.
Heute ___ wir zusammen.
lernen — Heute already opens the sentence; lernen is the finite verb and remains lower-case.
When it doesn't hold
What breaks the rule, said out loud. Hiding it is what makes you feel cheated in the exam.
- The polite pronoun Sie is always capitalised, and its lower case sie means something else.Kommen Sie mit? – Kommen sie mit?
- In a compound noun the capital appears once, at the start.die Bahnhofstraße, das Krankenhaus
- Adjectives turned into nouns go back to a capital, usually after etwas, nichts or viel.etwas Neues, nichts Gutes
What your own language pushes you to say
Wrong Das Neue Haus ist teuer.
Right Das neue Haus ist teuer.
English capitalises words inside titles and headings, so the habit is to capitalise the adjective too. German capitalises the noun and nothing else around it.
Curriculum alignment and sources
- CEFR A1 · limited control of basic structures and writing conventions; the exact sequence is editorial · Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Companion Volume
- Cross-checked against German-specific descriptions and current official orthography; this is not a school curriculum · Reference Level Descriptions developed so far