Punctuation: capital letter

Capital letter

Capital letters are normally introduced at the beginning of each sentence. A sentence always ends with a period, exclamation mark, question mark or period.

Crois-tu qu'il va venir? Oui, dans une heure.

A sentence is also capitalized to designate a person's name, proper names or to show respect.

- Il est venu avec Robert
- Cher Monsieur
- La France mais le peuple français.

Names of streets, countries, states or geographical places are written with capital letters and hyphens.

- Les États-Unis, la Grande-Bretagne
- Le Lot-et-Garonne
- La mer du Nord

In front of the name of the character he qualifies, the words saint or the mark of nobility do not take capital letters.

- Aujourd'hui, c'est la saint Patrick.
- Charles de Gaulle

Notre-Dame, the name of the Blessed Virgin, of a church dedicated to her, or of a place, is written with two capital letters and a hyphen. If for a church the complement is other than the designation of the place where it is located, the various elements are linked by hyphens./p>

- Notre-Dame de Paris
- Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde, Notre-Dame-de-Lorette...

Finally, it should be noted that in writing, accents must also appear in capital letters: À, Étant donné que, Être ou ne pas être... However, this rule is rarely applied, especially in computer science, since the French keyboard does not allow for the simple formation of the É.