Les majuscules.... partie enième.....

Question

I don't mark myself down for punctuation, but of course I still want to get it right. And I have a terrible tendency to use capital letters for roads etc the english way - i.e. "Rue de Quelque chose", "Place Quelque Chose" only to find that it should be "rue de Quelque Chose", "place Quelque chose" etc.
So I was expecting "le château de Versailles". Mais non !

Is there any logic in this, or is it basically something that a native speaker just knows intuitively ?

Céline Pickard · Accepted Answer

Bonjour Jim,
I see your logic (and I feel your frustration)! And yes, once again, French throws you another curve ball! Que dire !? C'est une langue avec une grammaire remplie de petites surprises, bien énervantes parfois ;-)
Mais, revenons à nos moutons ! Both options are accepted in the system (i.e. with and without the capital C). Usually, as you found out, when talking about the name of a street/avenue/boulevard etc., you will not use the capital letter:
rue de [...] / boulevard [...] / avenue [...]
But you will need the capital letters for the official names of institutions such as "le Château de Versailles", "la Galerie des Glaces", "les Jardins de Versailles". However, there will be no capital letters in names such as "la pyramide du Louvre, la tour Eiffel, la rue du Général Leclerc etc" because they either refer to a structure (i.e. architecture) or a common location (i.e. rue etc). This means you could have "le château de Versailles" if you're referring to the structure rather than the institution.
There is a long explanation about capital letters in the following link (all in French):
Les Majuscules - Académie française
I hope this is helpful.
Bonne journée !

Jim Luetchford · Answer

Merci beaucoup Céline !