ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the use of punctuation and spelling in the German grammar. On the whole, German punctuation is fairly similar to that of English, e.g. using a capital letter at the beginning of a sentence and a full stop at the end. There are, however, a couple of areas of divergence which need attention: the use of capitals for nouns; the use of commas. In English, capital letters are used for proper nouns (i.e. names of people, places, titles and so on, e.g. ‘Mary’, ‘England’, ‘Prime Minister’) while in German, they are used for all nouns (including nouns derived from other parts of speech, such as adjectives and verbs). By contrast, adjectives are usually not capitalised, even when they are derived from proper nouns. The chapter is designed for both classroom use and independent study, providing step-by-step approach to punctuation and spelling and multiple exercises for the students to rehearse and practise themselves.
