Dates, Days & Months in French
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In French, we use cardinal numbers to talk about the date. The exception to this is the first of the month, here we use the ordinal number le premier.
In contrast to English, days and months are not capitalised in French, they are written with a lowercase letter.
| Les mois | Translation |
|---|---|
| janvier | January |
| février | February |
| mars | March |
| avril | April |
| mai | May |
| juin | June |
| juillet | July |
| août | August |
| septembre | September |
| octobre | October |
| novembre | November |
| décembre | December |
| Les jours de la semaine | Translation |
|---|---|
| lundi | Monday |
| mardi | Tuesday |
| mercredi | Wednesday |
| jeudi | Thursday |
| vendredi | Friday |
| samedi | Saturday |
| dimanche | Sunday |
| le week-end | the weekend |
| le jour de la semaine | a weekday |
| la journée de travail | a workday |
| le jour férié | a bank holiday/a public holiday |
How to say the date in French
To say the date in French, we usually use the following order: day (in numbers) + month (in letters) + years (in numbers).
To say the complete date, we use the article le.
- Examples:
- On est le 1er janvier 2000.
- On est le 25 juin 2009.
The day of the week comes after le and before the date.
- Example:
- Le vendredi 5 octobre 2009.
We introduce the months with the preposition en or the phrase au mois de.
- Examples:
- On est en octobre 2009.
- On est au mois de novembre 2009.
The year is always introduced by the preposition en.
- Example:
- On est en 2009.
In spoken French, there are two ways to say the year:
- Example:
- 1990 = mille neuf cent quatre-vingt-dix
- or: dix-neuf cent quatre-vingt-dix
Remember!
Days and months are never capitalised in French.
- Example:
- Le jeudi 5 novembre 2012
- not:
le Jeudi 5 Novembre 2012
