Dates, Days & Months
- Days of the Week in Spanish
- How to write dates in Spanish
- Public Holidays in Spain and Latin America
- How to say years in Spanish
- Exercises
- Lingolia Plus Spanish
Months of the Year in Spanish
Unlike in English, Spanish months of the year are written with a lowercase letter.
Los meses
enero – January
febrero – February
marzo – March
abril – April
mayo – May
junio – June
julio – July
agosto – August
septiembre – September
octubre – October
noviembre – November
diciembre – December
Days of the Week in Spanish
Like the months, the days of the week are also written with a lowercase letter.
Los días de la semana
Días entre semana – Weekdays
lunes – Monday
martes – Tuesday
miércoles – Wednesday
jueves – Thursday
viernes – Friday
Fin de semana – Weekend
sábado – Saturday
domingo – Sunday
Other expressions
día laboral – working day
día festivo – bank holiday/public holiday
puente – an extra day off that bridges the gap between a public holiday and the weekend
quince días/una quincena – fortnight
How to write dates in Spanish
Spanish expresses the date with cardinal numbers, although certain countries in Latin America use ordinal numbers to refer to the first three days of the month.
- Examples:
- 1st March = el uno de marzo (Spain)
- 1st March = el primero de marzo (Latin America)
- The order of the date is always as follows: day, month, year. Like in English, the day and the year are written as numbers.
- Example:
- lunes, 1 de marzo de 2001
- We place the preposition de before the month and the year.
- Example:
- 5 de octubre de 2005
- When we refer to a specific date within a sentence, we introduce it with el. This is similar to the English the.
- Examples:
- Nos vamos de vacaciones el 10 de agosto.We’re going on holiday on (the) 10th (of) August.
- Nos vamos de vacaciones el sábado 10 de agosto.We’re going on holiday on Saturday 10th August.
- To just say the day, we don’t use the article.
- Example:
- Hoy es 7 de octubre.Today is the 7th October.
- not:
Hoy es el 7 de octubre.
- To write the date as a number, we can use dashes (-) or slashes (/).
- Examples:
- 15-06-2018
- 15/06/2018
- Like in English, we can also abbreviate the year to the final two digits when writing the date as a number.
- Example:
- 15-06-18
Public Holidays in Spain and Latin America
Date | Public Holiday | Translation |
---|---|---|
1 de enero | Año Nuevo | New Year’s Day |
6 de enero | Epifanía/Día de Reyes | Epiphany |
14 de febrero | San Valentín | Valentine’s Day |
(date changes every year) | Semana Santa | Holy Week (Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday) |
19 de marzo (only in Spain) | Día del padre | Father’s Day |
1er domingo de mayo (only in Spain) | Día de la madre | Mother’s Day |
1 de noviembre | (Día de) Todos los Santos | All Saints’ Day |
24 de diciembre | Noche Buena | Christmas Eve |
25 de diciembre | (Día de) Navidad | Christmas Day |
28 de diciembre | (Día de los) Santos Inocentes | Feast of the Holy Innocents |
31 de diciembre | Noche Vieja | New Year’s Eve (literally: Old Night) |
How to say years in Spanish
To say years (los años) in Spanish we use cardinal numbers.
- Examples:
- 1813 – mil ochocientos trece
- 1999 – mil novecientos noventa y nueve
- 2000 – dos mil
- 2010 – dos mil diez