Thursday, September 21, 2017

Capitalization of German words in English sentences



If I write an English text and use some German nouns in there do I have to write them capitalized or not?



If I would have a whole sentence or quote in German I would probably use German grammar and capitalization rules but what about single words in an English sentence?


Answer




You do not need to capitalize nouns unless they're proper (or at the beginning of a sentence).



Particularly if your audience is made of English speakers who aren't expected to have knowledge of German vocabulary or grammar, the capitalization of an ordinary noun may cause confusion.



It's a good general practice to italicize foreign words that haven't become an accepted part of the English language yet, though.


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