English orthography

(Spelling rules in the English language)

Table of contents – orthography

On this page you will find the following:

  1. Upper and lower case spelling
  2. Further explanations and exercises

What needs to be considered in the English orthography?

In general, the orthography in the English language, i.e. the spelling, is not very complicated. You can follow the rule of thumb that all words (including nouns) with few exceptions are written in lower case. Only the following irregularities are capitalised:

  • Beginnings of sentences:
    • The hotel is very expensive.”
  • Names of the months:
    • March, August, September, etc.
  • Days of the week:
    • Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc.
  • Proper nouns (names):
    • Grand Canyon, London, the Eiffel Tower, Peter, Sandra, etc.
  • Salutations (in emails, letters, or similar):
    • Mister, Miss, Mr, Ms, Mrs, Sirs, Madam, etc.
  • Languages, countries, and nationalities:
    • Canada, Germany, Greece, Argentina, etc.
    • American, French, Chinese, etc.

Further explanations referring to the ‘English orthography’

The following explanations are related to the topic ‘Spelling rules (orthography) in the English language’ and could also be interesting: