Days of the Week in French: Pronunciation, Origins and Grammar

The days of the week in French

In the order the French use them, which starts on Monday.

Three things to notice before anything else:

1. Lowercase. French does not capitalise days of the week, months, languages or nationalities. Lundi, not Lundi, unless it starts a sentence.
2. All masculine. Le lundi, le samedi, le dimanche. Never la.
3. Six of them end in -di, from the Latin "dies" (day). Only dimanche is different, and even that has the "di" at the start. The stress, as always in French, is on the last syllable.

How to pronounce the days of the week in French

The table gives the shape. These are the sounds that give English speakers away, day by day.

lundi (lun-DEE). The "un" is a nasal vowel: say "uh" and let the air go partly through your nose, without pronouncing the n as a consonant. "Lun-dee" with a full English n is the classic error. Stress the last syllable.

mardi (mar-DEE). The French r is at the back of the throat, a soft gargle, not an English r. If you cannot do it yet, a soft h-like sound is closer than an American r. Do not say "MAR-dee" with the stress on the first syllable; it is mar-DEE.

mercredi (mair-kruh-DEE). Three syllables. The first e is "eh" as in "air", the second e is the neutral French "uh". Two throat r's. Most learners say "MER-kruh-dee" or "mer-CREE-dee"; it is mair-kruh-DEE with the stress at the end. This is the day people get wrong the longest.

jeudi (zhuh-DEE). The j is the "zh" of "measure", never an English j. The "eu" is a rounded "uh", made with the lips pushed forward as if to whistle. "Juh-dee" with an English j is instantly foreign.

vendredi (vahn-druh-DEE). The "en" is a nasal vowel, "ahn" through the nose, with no n consonant. Then "druh", then "dee". Three syllables; do not add a fourth.

samedi (sam-DEE). The middle e is silent in normal speech, so it is two syllables: "sam-dee", not "sa-muh-dee". You will hear "sa-muh-dee" in slow, careful speech and in songs, but "sam-dee" is how people talk.

dimanche (dee-MAHNSH). The "an" is nasal, and the "che" is "sh". Two syllables. Not "dee-manch" with a hard ch, and not "dee-MAN-shay"; the final e is silent.

The general rule that fixes half of this: French words are stressed on the last syllable, and the final consonant or e is usually silent. Lun-DEE, mar-DEE, sam-DEE, dee-MAHNSH.

Where the French days of the week come from

Like Spanish and Italian, French inherited the Roman system, where each day belonged to one of the seven visible "planets", and then swapped in Christian names for Saturday and Sunday. The "-di" ending is what is left of the Latin word "dies", day.

So lundi is Moon-day, exactly like Monday; mardi is Mars-day; mercredi is Mercury-day; jeudi is Jupiter-day; vendredi is Venus-day. Once you know that, four of the seven are impossible to forget. Mardi Gras ("fat Tuesday") is the Tuesday before Lent, which is why the name sounds French: it is.

The grammar: le, les and no "on"

This is the section that fixes the most common mistake in the whole topic. English says "on Monday". French never uses a preposition with a day of the week. The article does the work, and the presence or absence of the article changes the meaning.

No article = a specific day, this coming or just passed

• Je travaille lundi. (I'm working on Monday, meaning this Monday.)
• On se voit vendredi ? (Shall we meet on Friday?)
• Il est arrivé mardi. (He arrived on Tuesday.)

le + day = every week on that day, a habit

• Je travaille le lundi. (I work on Mondays.)
• Le dimanche, on mange chez ma mère. (On Sundays we eat at my mother's.)
• Le musée est fermé le mardi. (The museum is closed on Tuesdays.)

Notice that "le lundi" is singular in French for a plural idea in English. "Les lundis" also exists and means the same thing, but "le lundi" is more natural.

Never "en lundi", never "sur lundi", never "à lundi" (except in one phrase)

"À lundi !" on its own means "See you Monday!", the same way "à demain" means "see you tomorrow". That is the only time à goes in front of a day, and it is a farewell, not a preposition of time.

Other words that go with days

Those last two are a French oddity worth learning: a week is "huit jours" and two weeks are "quinze jours", because the French count both ends.

Why the French week starts on Monday

French calendars, diaries and timetables put lundi in the first column. France and the rest of Europe follow the international standard in which Monday is the first day and the weekend sits at the end. If a French person says "en début de semaine" (at the start of the week), they mean Monday or Tuesday, and "en fin de semaine" means Thursday or Friday, not the weekend; the weekend is "le week-end", said with a French accent and, officially, written with a hyphen.

How to memorise the days of the week in French

Say them as a chant. lundi, mardi, mercredi, jeudi, vendredi, samedi, dimanche. Seven words, the first six with the same beat. Say the list out loud ten times while walking. It is stored by the end of the walk.

Use the planets. Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Sabbath, Lord. Four of the French names are recognisably the planet.

Learn the exceptions as a pair. Six end in -di. Samedi and dimanche are the odd ones out, and both are the weekend. "The weekend is where the pattern breaks" is a sentence you will remember.

Switch your phone to French for a week. The calendar and lock screen will show you the day fifty times a day. It is annoying for two days and then the words are yours.

Write one line each morning. "Aujourd'hui, c'est mardi. Demain, c'est mercredi. Samedi, je vais au marché." Thirty seconds and you have used the day, the ser-equivalent (c'est) and the no-article rule together.

Phrases with the days of the week you will actually use

Asking and saying the day

• Quel jour sommes-nous ? (What day is it? Formal, "which day are we?")
• On est quel jour ? / C'est quel jour aujourd'hui ? (What day is it? Casual.)
• Aujourd'hui, c'est mardi. / On est mardi. (Today is Tuesday.)
• Demain, c'est mercredi. (Tomorrow is Wednesday.)
• Hier, c'était lundi. (Yesterday was Monday.)
• Après-demain, c'est jeudi. (The day after tomorrow is Thursday.)
• Avant-hier, c'était dimanche. (The day before yesterday was Sunday.)

Note that French uses "c'est" or "on est" plus the day with no article to identify the day. "Aujourd'hui c'est le mardi" is wrong.

Making plans

• Qu'est-ce que tu fais samedi ? (What are you doing on Saturday?)
• On se voit jeudi ? (Shall we meet on Thursday?)
• Tu es libre vendredi soir ? (Are you free Friday evening?)
• Lundi, je ne peux pas. (I can't on Monday.)
• Mercredi, ça te va ? (Does Wednesday work for you?)
• À lundi ! (See you Monday!)
• Bon week-end ! (Have a good weekend!)
• À la semaine prochaine. (See you next week.)

Talking about routine

• Le lundi, j'ai cours de français. (On Mondays I have French class.)
• Je travaille du lundi au vendredi. (I work Monday to Friday.)
• Ouvert du mardi au dimanche. (Open Tuesday to Sunday.)
• Fermé le lundi. (Closed on Mondays. On the door of half the restaurants in France.)
• Le dimanche, tout est fermé. (On Sundays everything is closed. Still largely true outside big cities.)

Dates

In a full date, the day of the week comes first, then le, then the number, then the month:

• le lundi 3 mars (Monday, 3 March)
• le samedi 14 juin (Saturday, 14 June)
• Nous sommes le vendredi 20 septembre. (It is Friday, 20 September.)

The number comes before the month, always, and only the first of the month uses an ordinal: le 1er (premier) avril, but le 2 avril, le 3 avril.

Abbreviations for the days of the week in French

On calendars, timetables and school schedules you will see:

Because mardi and mercredi both start with M, single-letter systems usually write Ma and Me, or use two letters for all days: Lu, Ma, Me, Je, Ve, Sa, Di. The three-letter forms with a full stop (lun., mar., mer.) are the standard written abbreviations.

Common mistakes with days of the week in French

• "On lundi" translated as "en lundi" or "sur lundi". No preposition. Just "lundi" for a specific day, "le lundi" for every week.
• Capitalising the days. French keeps them lowercase.
• "Aujourd'hui c'est le mardi." When identifying the day, no article: c'est mardi.
• Pronouncing the n in lundi and vendredi. They are nasal vowels; the n is not a separate sound.
• Stressing the first syllable. French stresses the last: lun-DEE, mer-kruh-DEE.
• Pronouncing jeudi with an English j. It is "zh": zhuh-DEE.
• "Sa-muh-dee" for samedi. Two syllables in normal speech: sam-DEE.
• "Les lundis" for a single upcoming Monday. "Je te vois les lundis" means "I see you on Mondays", not "on Monday".
• Thinking "fin de semaine" means weekend. In France it means the end of the working week (Thursday and Friday). The weekend is "le week-end". In Québec, "la fin de semaine" does mean the weekend, and "week-end" is avoided.

Days of the week in French vs other Romance languages

If you know one Romance language, the others are cheap.

French and Italian even share the "-di" ending. Portuguese is the outlier, numbering its weekdays instead of naming them after planets.

Say them, do not just read them

You now know more about the days of the week in French than most people who have studied the language for a year. The gap between that and answering "On se voit jeudi ?" without a pause is entirely a speaking gap, and it closes only with your mouth.

1. Say the seven days out loud, in order, ten times, stress on the last syllable, nasal vowels through the nose.
2. Say "Aujourd'hui c'est , demain c'est , hier c'était ___" with the real days.
3. Make three plans out loud: "Samedi, je vais...", "Le lundi, j'ai...", "On se voit vendredi ?"
4. Then say them to something that answers back. SPAIKING's AI speaking partner will ask you what day it is, propose a meeting on mercredi and correct the English j in jeudi and the full n in lundi in real time. That is what turns a list into something you can use with a real French speaker.