Dates, Days & Months

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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

The table below presents some of the most important public holidays (días festivos) 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