Hey it's Wendy from Worldwide Speak,
and in this video I'm going to talk
about some rules about capitalization.
If you are just beginning to write in English,
this is a video for you.
You want to get capitalization correct
so that your sentences are correct. Let's learn.
So what is a capital letter? The capital letters
are the letters that are bigger - sometimes known as
uppercase as opposed to lowercase
when the letters are smaller.
So the first rule I want to talk about with you
is the beginning of a sentence.
You must use a capital letter
for the first letter of the first word of a sentence.
Pretty easy, right?
Let's look at some examples.
My address is 123 Long Meadow Drive.
So you can see the word
"my," which is the first word of the sentence,
the "m" is larger, and that's the capital letter.
Let's look at another example.
"His teacher is Mr.White."
If we look at that sentence,
the first word is "his," and you can see the
"h" is a capital letter.
The "i" and the "" are the smaller or
lowercase letters. Let's do one more example.
"We went to the beach yesterday."
As you can see, "we"
is the first word of the sentence,
and the first letter is "w."
And the "w" is a capital "w."
The second rule that I'd like to talk to
you about is the pronoun"I."
We always capitalize this whether it's
the first word of a sentence or whether
it comes in the middle of a sentence or towards the
end of a sentence.
The pronoun "I" is always capitalized.
Let's look at a few examples. First:
"I love running."
You can see the "I," which is the first word
in the sentence, and obviously the first
letter is capitalized. Let's take a look at
another sentence:
"My sister and I both enjoy cooking."
Well "my sister"
comes before "I," but the"I" is capitalized no matter
where it is because the pronoun "I" is always
capitalized. "My sister and I both enjoy
cooking." Let's take a look at one last example where we
capitalize the pronoun "I."
"Last year I ran two marathons."
And you see there "I" again is in the middle of the
sentence, but it is capitalized because
the pronoun "I" is always capitalized.
And the third rule that I'd like to talk about
with capitalization is that of proper nouns.
Proper nouns are specific names for people, places,
businesses organizations,
and even cities and countries, and nationalities.
These proper nouns
will always take a capital letter.
Let's go over a bunch of examples so you
can get the hang of it.
Are you ready?
"A great city to visit in the summer is Chicago."
You can see here "Chicago" comes at the end of the
sentence, but since it's the name of a specific city
that name begins with a capital letter.
We put a capital "C" for "Chicago."
Let's take a look at another sentence:
"One of my favorite authors is Maya
Angelou." Here the name of the author, Maya Angelou,
her first name and her last name are capitalized.
She's a specific person. She's a famous author.
Let's take a look at yet another example.
"My mother orders from Amazon all of the time.
And let's take a look at one more:
"The beaches in Ireland are absolutely beautiful."
So as you look at all of these, you can see
the names of people, cities, countries, businesses-
those are always capitalized.
Those are proper nouns.
So as you begin writing in English,
it's important to remember these three rules about
capitalization that I've taught you.
Number one: always capitalize
the first letter of the first word in your sentence.
Number two: always capitalize the pronoun "I" no matter
where it is in the sentence.
And number three make sure that you capitalize
proper nouns. Those are the specific words for
people, places, businesses organizations, cities
countries and nationalities now that you know these
three rules. There are more rules about capitalization,
but these three are going to give you a solid
foundation when you begin writing sentences
in English. Using these three rules,
your sentences will be off to a great
start.
Thank you so much for learning with us,
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Thanks again. Take care.