Days, Months, Seasons, and Calendar Dates (Les jours, les mois, les saisons et les dates)

Level A1

Objective: Schedule appointments and state calendar dates accurately using standard French numerical formats.

What you’ll learn

Name the seven days and the twelve months in French.
State a full date using the day, month, and number format.
Use le premier for the first day of any month.
Distinguish between lundi and le lundi in daily use.

Vocabulary

The Days of the Week

French has seven days, starting with Monday in the standard calendar. The names come from Latin and are never capitalised, unlike English.

lundi — Monday
mardi — Tuesday
mercredi — Wednesday
jeudi — Thursday
vendredi — Friday
samedi — Saturday
dimanche — Sunday

In everyday usage, the bare day name refers to the nearest upcoming occurrence. Adding the definite article changes the meaning to a regular recurrence, so lundi means this Monday and le lundi means every Monday.

Days, Months, and Seasons

Category	French	English
Day	lundi	Monday
Day	mercredi	Wednesday
Day	dimanche	Sunday
Month	janvier	January
Month	avril	April
Month	juillet	July
Month	décembre	December
Season	le printemps	spring
Season	l'été	summer
Season	l'automne	autumn
Season

Common mistakes

Watch out for these

Je travaille Lundi et Mardi.
Je travaille lundi et mardi.
French days and months are never capitalised, so lundi and mardi always appear with a lowercase first letter.
Mon anniversaire est le un janvier.
Mon anniversaire est le premier janvier.
The first day of any month uses the ordinal premier rather than the cardinal un, giving le premier janvier.
Je vais à Paris en lundi.

Examples

Je travaille lundi et mardi.
Bare day names refer to the nearest upcoming occurrence. No preposition appears before lundi or mardi.
Je travaille le lundi et le mardi.
Adding le changes the meaning to a weekly recurrence, so the same sentence now means I work every Monday and Tuesday.
Mon anniversaire est le 15 juin.
Full dates follow the pattern le plus number plus month. The month juin stays lowercase.
Le premier janvier est un jour férié.
The first of any month uses the ordinal premier rather than the cardinal un.
Nous partons en vacances en juillet.
Months take the preposition en before the name. The month is never capitalised.
Il fait chaud en été.