Turkish capitalization looks reassuringly familiar at first — sentences and proper nouns start with a capital, just like English — and then it diverges in exactly the places an English speaker won't expect. The pattern is almost a mirror image of English habits: Turkish capitalizes the words English speakers think of as adjectives (nationalities and languages), and lowercases the calendar words English speakers reflexively capitalize (days and months). Learn where the two languages part ways and your written Turkish will look native.
The shared core: sentences and proper nouns
Start with what does match English. The first word of a sentence is capitalized, and so are genuine proper nouns — people, cities, countries, institutions, brand names.
Ayşe yarın Ankara'dan dönüyor.
Ayşe is coming back from Ankara tomorrow.
Boğaziçi Üniversitesi'nde okuyor.
She studies at Boğaziçi University.
Personal names (Ayşe), city and country names (Ankara), and the names of specific institutions (Boğaziçi Üniversitesi) are capitalized. So far this is the English rule. (When a case suffix attaches to a proper noun it is separated by an apostrophe — Ankara'dan, Üniversitesi'nde — which is covered on its own page.) The divergences begin with the calendar.
Days and months are lowercase mid-sentence
This is the rule English speakers break most often. The names of the days of the week and the months of the year are common nouns in Turkish and are written in lowercase when they appear in the middle of a sentence — even though English always capitalizes "Monday" and "January."
Toplantı pazartesi sabahı olacak.
The meeting will be on Monday morning.
Ben ocak ayında doğdum.
I was born in January.
Her cumartesi pazara gideriz.
We go to the market every Saturday.
Pazartesi ("Monday"), ocak ("January"), and cumartesi ("Saturday") all stay lowercase here. Writing "Pazartesi" or "Ocak" mid-sentence is a transfer error straight from English. The only time these words capitalize is at the very start of a sentence (like any word) or as part of a fixed calendar date, where the convention is to capitalize the month and the day-name:
Randevu 19 Ocak Salı günü.
The appointment is on Tuesday, 19 January.
29 Ekim Cumhuriyet Bayramı'nı kutluyoruz.
We're celebrating Republic Day on 29 October.
In the specific date 19 Ocak Salı, the month Ocak and the day Salı are capitalized because they form a fixed date expression. The contrast is the whole rule: a bare "I'll see you on monday in january" is lowercase (pazartesi, ocak), but a dated, formal "on Tuesday, 19 January" capitalizes them.
Languages and nationalities ARE capitalized
Now the opposite surprise. Where English speakers might hesitate, Turkish firmly capitalizes the names of languages, nationalities, and the adjectives derived from country names. These are treated as proper-noun-like and always take a capital, anywhere in the sentence.
Türkçe öğrenmek sandığımdan kolay.
Learning Turkish is easier than I thought.
Evde hem Almanca hem İngilizce konuşuyoruz.
At home we speak both German and English.
O bir Türk, eşi ise Fransız.
He's a Turk, and his wife is French.
The language names Türkçe, Almanca ("German"), and İngilizce are capitalized; so are the nationality nouns/adjectives Türk ("Turk / Turkish"), Fransız ("French [person]"), and İngiliz ("English / British"). This actually overlaps with the English habit of capitalizing "Turkish, German, French" — but because Turkish lowercases days and months, learners often over-correct and lowercase nationalities too. Don't: nationalities and languages keep their capital.
Almanca dersine başlayan herkese kolay gelsin.
Good luck to everyone starting the German class.
İngiliz çayını sütlü içmeyi sever.
He likes to drink English tea with milk.
Note the morphology so you can recognize the family: a country name plus -ce/-ca (after harmony, -çe/-ça) gives the language (Türk → Türkçe, Alman → Almanca), and these stay capitalized throughout.
The polite "siz" is NOT capitalized
German learners — and anyone who has seen German "Sie" — expect the polite second-person pronoun to be capitalized for respect. In Turkish it is not. The polite/plural siz ("you") and its forms are written in lowercase like any ordinary pronoun, even in the most formal letter or email.
Yardımınız için size çok teşekkür ederim.
Thank you very much for your help.
Sizi yarınki toplantıya bekliyoruz.
We look forward to seeing you at tomorrow's meeting.
Size ("to you," polite) and sizi ("you," accusative) are lowercase mid-sentence. There is no respectful capitalization of siz the way German capitalizes Sie; politeness in Turkish is carried by the choice of siz over sen and by the verb forms, not by an orthographic capital. (You will sometimes see Siz capitalized in very formal corporate or official correspondence as a courtesy gesture, but this is a stylistic flourish, not a rule — standard practice is lowercase.)
Sayın Yılmaz, mesajınızı aldık ve size en kısa sürede döneceğiz.
Dear Mr. Yılmaz, we have received your message and will get back to you as soon as possible.
Even in this formal register, size stays lowercase; what is capitalized is Sayın ("Dear / Esteemed") followed by the proper name Yılmaz.
Quick reference
| Word type | Turkish | vs. English habit |
|---|---|---|
| Day of week (mid-sentence) | lowercase — pazartesi | English capitalizes "Monday" |
| Month (mid-sentence) | lowercase — ocak | English capitalizes "January" |
| Day/month in a fixed date | capitalized — 19 Ocak Salı | matches English |
| Language | capitalized — Türkçe, Almanca | matches English |
| Nationality | capitalized — Türk, İngiliz | matches English |
| Polite "you" | lowercase — siz | German capitalizes "Sie" |
Common mistakes
❌ Toplantı Pazartesi günü.
Incorrect — capitalizing the day name mid-sentence.
✅ Toplantı pazartesi günü.
The meeting is on Monday.
❌ Ben Ocak ayında doğdum.
Incorrect — capitalizing a bare month name mid-sentence.
✅ Ben ocak ayında doğdum.
I was born in January.
Lowercase mid-sentence; capitalize only in a fixed date like 19 Ocak.
❌ Evde türkçe konuşuyoruz.
Incorrect — lowercasing a language name.
✅ Evde Türkçe konuşuyoruz.
We speak Turkish at home.
Languages and nationalities are always capitalized.
❌ Size yardımcı olabilir miyim?
Incorrect only if Siz is capitalized — polite 'siz' is lowercase.
✅ Size yardımcı olabilir miyim?
Can I help you?
Do not capitalize siz for politeness the way German capitalizes Sie.
❌ İstanbul'da bir İngiliz okuluna gidiyor mu?
Correct capitals — shown for contrast with the error below.
✅ istanbul'da bir ingiliz okuluna gidiyor.
Incorrect — lowercasing a place name and a nationality.
Place names (İstanbul) and nationalities (İngiliz) both keep their capital — and note the dotted İ required on both.
Key takeaways
- Sentence-initial words and true proper nouns (people, places, institutions) are capitalized, as in English.
- Days and months are lowercase mid-sentence (pazartesi, ocak); they capitalize only in a fixed date (19 Ocak Salı) or at the start of a sentence.
- Languages and nationalities are capitalized (Türkçe, Almanca, Türk, İngiliz) — don't strip these capitals when correcting your calendar habits.
- The polite siz is not capitalized; politeness is carried by word choice and verb forms, not orthography.
- The mirror image to remember: Turkish lowercases the calendar words English over-capitalizes and capitalizes the nationality/language words.
Now practice Turkish
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Start learning Turkish→Related Topics
- Capitalizing i and ıA1 — The one capitalization rule English speakers reliably get wrong — the capital of dotted i is İ, the capital of dotless ı is I — and how to stop autocorrect from breaking İstanbul.
- The Apostrophe on Proper NounsA2 — How inflectional suffixes attach to proper nouns with an apostrophe, and why derivational suffixes never take one.
- The Locative -DA: At / In / OnA1 — The locative case -DA marks static location (at, in, on) and powers the var/yok possession construction; unlike English at/in, it can never express motion toward a place.