Days of the Week and Months in French (with Dates and Memory Tricks)
By Miracle Team ·
Plans, tickets, birthdays, “see you Monday” — you cannot get through a French week without the days and months. They are pleasingly easy: most months look like their English cousins, the days hide a tidy planet mnemonic, and there are exactly two grammar quirks worth knowing. Here is all of it, with the pronunciation and the traps.
The days of the week
French calendars start the week on Monday, and the days go:
| French | Sounds like | English | Hidden origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| lundi | luhn-DEE | Monday | la Lune — the Moon |
| mardi | mar-DEE | Tuesday | Mars |
| mercredi | mair-kruh-DEE | Wednesday | Mercury |
| jeudi | zhuh-DEE | Thursday | Jupiter |
| vendredi | von-druh-DEE | Friday | Venus |
| samedi | sam-DEE | Saturday | the Sabbath |
| dimanche | dee-MONSH | Sunday | dies dominica — the Lord’s day |
The planet column is your memory trick: Moon-day, Mars-day, Mercury-day, Jupiter-day, Venus-day. Five of seven days decoded in one glance — English hides the same planets behind Norse gods (Thursday = Thor’s day = thunder = Jupiter).
The two quirks of French days
1. No capital letters. French writes lundi, janvier, été — all lowercase, even mid-sentence. Capitalising them is the most common English-speaker giveaway in writing: Lundi → lundi.
2. Le lundi vs lundi. The little article changes the meaning:
- Lundi, je travaille. — On Monday (this specific one), I work.
- Le lundi, je travaille. — On Mondays (every single one), I work.
All seven days are masculine — le lundi, le samedi — so this is also free practice for your articles. If le vs la still feels like a coin flip, our le or la guide explains the system, and the le or la quiz turns it into reflex.
The months of the year
| French | Sounds like | English |
|---|---|---|
| janvier | zhon-vee-AY | January |
| février | fay-vree-AY | February |
| mars | marss | March |
| avril | ah-VREEL | April |
| mai | may | May |
| juin | zhwan | June |
| juillet | zhwee-YAY | July |
| août | oot | August |
| septembre | sep-TOM-bruh | September |
| octobre | ok-TOH-bruh | October |
| novembre | no-VOM-bruh | November |
| décembre | day-SOM-bruh | December |
Eleven of the twelve are transparent cousins of English — the one ambush is août (August), pronounced simply “oot”. Note mars says its final s (like the planet), and the -embre months end in a soft “-OM-bruh”.
Saying “in July” is just en: en juillet, en décembre. The fuller au mois de juillet (“in the month of July”) works too.
How to say the date
French dates use le + number + month — with plain numbers, not “first, second, third”:
- le 14 juillet — the 14th of July (Bastille Day)
- le 25 décembre — the 25th of December
- On est le combien ? — On est le 3 mars. — What’s the date? — It’s March 3rd.
The single exception is the 1st, which takes premier: le premier janvier (January 1st). Every other day is a plain number — le deux mai, never le deuxième mai.
Two habits to copy: the day-month order (le 3 mars, never month-first), and dropping “on” — French says Je pars lundi (“I leave Monday”), with no preposition at all. Saying dates aloud is also sneaky numbers practice — if le 14 or le 25 still makes you pause, run through French numbers 1–100 first.
Bonus: the four seasons
le printemps (spring), l’été (summer), l’automne (autumn), l’hiver (winter) — with one preposition quirk: au printemps (in spring), but en été, en automne, en hiver for the other three.
Making it stick
- Anchor the days to the planets — Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus carry Monday to Friday by themselves.
- Say today’s date aloud every morning. Nous sommes le mardi 28 juillet. Ten seconds a day covers days, months and numbers at once.
- Use the goodbye trick. Every à demain ! and à lundi ! from our French greetings guide is a mini date-drill — real French you can deploy today.
- Write plans in French. Turn “dentist, Tuesday” into dentiste, mardi in your calendar — effortless daily review.
Mistakes to avoid
- Capitalising days and months — lundi and janvier, always lowercase.
- Ordinal dates — only le premier exists; after that it is le deux, le trois…
- “Sur lundi” — never translate “on Monday” with sur; it is just lundi (or le lundi for every Monday).
- Greeting at night with bonne nuit — that pairs with dates and plans often enough to repeat: it means “sleep well”, not “good evening”.
The days, months and dates all come with native-speaker audio in Learn French for Beginners, alongside 4,500+ everyday words with pictures and mini games. Download it free on Google Play and start saying today’s date en français tomorrow morning.