Swedish capitalisation looks almost like English until you notice how much less of it there is. The rules are mostly simpler — but the differences cause a constant stream of visible English-transfer errors, because they are exactly the cases where your hand reaches for a capital out of habit. The single biggest one: languages, nationalities, days of the week, and months are all lowercase in Swedish. This is purely an orthographic convention, not a grammar rule, which is why it is so easy to forget and so easy to fix once you know it. This page is about the writing convention only; for which countries take which language names see Languages and Nationalities, and for the du/Ni question of address see Du and the polite Ni.
The big four: lowercase where English capitalises
English capitalises a whole family of words that Swedish leaves lowercase. Learn these four categories together, because they are the ones English speakers get wrong by reflex.
1. Languages — svenska, engelska, tyska, franska, arabiska — all lowercase.
2. Nationalities and ethnic/national adjectives and nouns — en svensk (a Swede), svensk mat (Swedish food), en amerikan (an American) — lowercase.
3. Days of the week — måndag, tisdag, onsdag, torsdag, fredag, lördag, söndag — lowercase.
4. Months — januari, februari, mars, april, maj, juni … — lowercase.
Jag talar svenska och lite tyska.
I speak Swedish and a little German. English capitalises 'Swedish' and 'German'; Swedish does not.
Hon är svensk men bor i Norge.
She is Swedish but lives in Norway. The nationality 'svensk' is lowercase; the country name 'Norge' is a proper noun and stays capitalised.
Vi ses på måndag.
See you on Monday. Weekdays are lowercase in Swedish.
Min födelsedag är i mars.
My birthday is in March. Months are lowercase too.
Note the boundary carefully: the language and the nationality are lowercase, but the country is a proper noun and stays capitalised — Sverige (Sweden), Tyskland (Germany), Norge (Norway). So you write en svensk från Sverige — lowercase Swede, capital Sweden.
En fransman från Frankrike pratar franska.
A Frenchman from France speaks French. Only the country 'Frankrike' is capitalised; the nationality and the language are not.
Titles use sentence case, not title case
English headline style capitalises Most Of The Important Words In A Title. Swedish does not. A book, film, song, or article title is written in sentence case: capitalise only the first word (and any proper nouns inside the title). Everything else is lowercase, exactly as in a normal sentence.
Män som hatar kvinnor
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (literally 'Men who hate women') — only the first word is capitalised, Swedish sentence case, not English title case.
Boken heter Det går an.
The book is called 'Det går an'. Only the first word 'Det' is capitalised.
Vi såg en film som hette Sällskapsresan.
We saw a film called 'Sällskapsresan'. A one-word title; if it were longer, only its first word would be capital.
So when you translate an English title into Swedish, or write a Swedish heading, resist the urge to capitalise each major word. Den långa vägen hem, not Den Långa Vägen Hem.
The polite Ni and forms of address
Historically, the polite second-person pronoun Ni was capitalised as a sign of respect in letters, the way German still capitalises Sie. Modern Swedish has largely abandoned both the formal Ni and its capitalisation: everyday Swedish addresses everyone, including strangers and superiors, with the informal du (the famous du-reformen of the late 1960s). When Ni does appear today — in some formal correspondence or older-style customer service — it is normally lowercase (ni), and the address pronoun du is lowercase too. The deep dive on this social shift is on Du and the polite Ni; the orthographic point here is simply: don't capitalise du or ni mid-sentence.
Hej! Hur mår du idag?
Hi! How are you today? The pronoun 'du' is lowercase — Swedish doesn't capitalise it the way German capitalises Sie.
Vi tackar för att ni hörde av er.
Thank you for getting in touch (formal 'ni'). Even the polite plural 'ni' is lowercase in modern usage.
What Swedish DOES capitalise
To keep the picture balanced, the capitals you keep are the predictable ones:
- The first word of a sentence — as in English.
- Proper nouns: names of people (Erik, Åsa), places (Stockholm, Åland, Örebro), organisations, brands, named events. The å/ä/ö stay in these names — Åland, Örebro, Gävle — capitalised with their special letter intact (see Writing å, ä, and ö).
- Gud ("God") when it refers to the one God of monotheism, capitalised much as in English. Lowercase gud for a generic god or in exclamations like herregud (which is conventionally written lowercase as a fixed expression).
- The pronoun "I" has no equivalent issue — Swedish "I" (an archaic plural "you") is rare; the everyday "I" of English corresponds to jag, which is lowercase.
Erik bor i Örebro.
Erik lives in Örebro. Both the personal name and the city — proper nouns — are capitalised, and the city keeps its ö.
Igår var jag trött, men idag mår jag bra.
Yesterday I was tired, but today I feel fine. Note 'jag' (I) is lowercase, unlike English 'I'.
Många tror på Gud.
Many believe in God. Capitalised when it names the monotheistic God, as in English.
A side-by-side summary
| Category | English | Swedish |
|---|---|---|
| Language | Swedish (cap) | svenska (lower) |
| Nationality | a Swede (cap) | en svensk (lower) |
| Weekday | Monday (cap) | måndag (lower) |
| Month | January (cap) | januari (lower) |
| The pronoun "I" | I (cap) | jag (lower) |
| Title | The Long Way Home (title case) | Den långa vägen hem (sentence case) |
| Country | Sweden (cap) | Sverige (cap) — same |
| Personal name | Erik (cap) | Erik (cap) — same |
Common Mistakes
❌ Jag pratar Svenska och Engelska.
Incorrect — languages are lowercase in Swedish: svenska, engelska.
✅ Jag pratar svenska och engelska.
I speak Swedish and English.
❌ Vi ses på Måndag i Januari.
Incorrect — weekdays and months are lowercase: måndag, januari.
✅ Vi ses på måndag i januari.
See you on Monday in January.
❌ Han är en Svensk.
Incorrect — nationalities are lowercase: en svensk. (The country Sverige stays capitalised.)
✅ Han är en svensk.
He is a Swede.
❌ Writing a title as 'Den Långa Resan Hem' (English title case)
Incorrect — Swedish uses sentence case: capitalise only the first word and any proper nouns.
✅ Den långa resan hem
The long journey home (book/film title).
❌ Tack för att Du hörde av Dig.
Incorrect — du/dig are lowercase in modern Swedish; don't capitalise them the German Sie way.
✅ Tack för att du hörde av dig.
Thanks for getting in touch.
Key Takeaways
- Lowercase in Swedish, capital in English: languages (svenska), nationalities (en svensk), weekdays (måndag), months (januari), and the pronoun jag ("I").
- Countries and personal names stay capitalised, same as English: Sverige, Erik, Örebro (keep the special letter).
- Titles use sentence case — only the first word and proper nouns are capital, never English-style title case.
- du and ni are lowercase; modern Swedish dropped both the formal Ni and its old respectful capital.
- Gud is capitalised when it names the monotheistic God, like English.
Now practice Swedish
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Start learning Swedish→Related Topics
- Swedish Spelling: OverviewA2 — Swedish spelling is fairly regular and largely phonemic — but you must master double consonants for vowel length, the soft/hard g and k, the many spellings of the sje-sound, and the iron rule that compounds are written as ONE word, since splitting them (särskrivning) is the most stigmatised error in the language.
- Languages and NationalitiesA2 — Each country gives you a little word-family: Sverige → svensk (adjective) → svenska (language) → en svensk (a Swede). The iron rule that trips up English speakers: ALL of these are written lowercase — svensk, svenska, en tysk — never capitalised. And the language name is just the -ska form, identical to the definite adjective, so 'Swedish' (the language) is morphologically the adjective in disguise.
- The du-Reform and Address (du vs ni)A1 — Swedish addresses EVERYONE as du today — friend, stranger, boss, the elderly — following the famous du-reform around 1970. The old formal ni largely died and can now sound cold or condescending, the exact opposite of the European norm. Coming from French (vous) or German (Sie), the instinct to reach for a polite 'you' is a trap here: using ni to show respect often backfires. This page explains the address system, the history, the controversial 'new ni' some service staff use, and the one surviving exception — royalty.