Capital letters in Dutch: names, languages, days

Dutch and English part ways on days and months: Dutch writes them in lowercase — maandag (Monday), januari (January) — while both languages give a capital to names, to languages, and to adjectives built from a place name. This page sorts out which Dutch words take a capital and which stay small.

Capitalise the first word of a sentence, proper names, the names of languages and peoples, adjectives formed from a place name, and the names of holidays.

• The first word of a sentence, and proper names of people and places: Anna woont in Amsterdam. (Anna lives in Amsterdam.)
• Names of languages and of peoples: Ik leer Nederlands. (I am learning Dutch.) Hij is een Belg. (He is a Belgian.)
• Adjectives built from a place name keep the capital, just as in English: Nederlandse kaas (Dutch cheese), de Franse taal (the French language), de Amsterdamse grachten (the Amsterdam canals).
• Names of holidays: Pasen (Easter), Kerstmis (Christmas), Koningsdag (King's Day).
• The digraph ij counts as one letter, so at the start of a name both parts are capitalised: IJsselmeer, IJmuiden. More on this in the Dutch alphabet.

Days, months, seasons, and adjectives that come from a religion or an art movement are written with a small letter. Days and months are the classic trap: English capitalises Monday and January, and learners carry that habit into Dutch, where the same words stay small.

• Days of the week: maandag, dinsdag, zondag (Monday, Tuesday, Sunday). Op zaterdag werk ik niet. (I don't work on Saturday.)
• Months: januari, maart, oktober (January, March, October). See also days, months and dates.
• Seasons: lente, zomer, herfst, winter (spring, summer, autumn, winter). English writes these lowercase too, so here the two languages agree.
• Adjectives from a religion or movement, which point to an idea rather than a place: christelijk (Christian), islamitisch (Islamic).

Side by side, the two languages line up like this — of these categories, only days and months actually differ:

Learners often hear that Dutch "uses fewer capitals than English" and then lowercase everything, including nederlands and nederlandse kaas. Both of those are wrong. The name of a language and any adjective built from a place name keep the capital: Nederlands, Nederlandse kaas, de Duitse grens (the German border). The lowercase rule only reaches days, months, seasons, and religion or movement adjectives — not anything tied to a place or a language.