The Days of the Week in Spanish
Spanish weekdays are normally lowercase and fit neatly into weekly plans. Name all seven, then use el with a day to describe a specific occasion.
Learning objective
Name the seven days and use el to talk about a specific day.
Walk through one week: lunes, martes, miércoles, jueves, viernes, sábado, domingo. These mean Monday through Sunday. Spanish weekday names are normally written with lowercase letters unless they begin a sentence. Miércoles and sábado keep their written accents.
Use el before a weekday to place an event on that day in a simple schedule: La clase es el lunes means The class is on Monday. Spanish does not add a separate word equivalent to English on in this pattern. El is the masculine singular definite article, the Spanish form of the.
Los plus a weekday commonly describes a repeated routine: Estudio los martes means I study on Tuesdays. Lunes and martes have the same written form in singular and plural; the article helps show the difference. Other days add s in the plural, such as los sábados.
Calendars may display Monday or Sunday as the first column depending on region, organisation, and software settings. That layout does not change the weekday names. Learn the full sequence, but also practise jumping from a real plan to one day without reciting all seven first.
Examples
Hoy es miércoles.
Today is Wednesday.
The weekday is lowercase and miércoles carries an accent.
La clase es el lunes.
The class is on Monday.
El lunes places this class on Monday.
Estudio los martes.
I study on Tuesdays.
Los martes describes a repeated weekly routine.
Trabajo el sábado.
I work on Saturday.
Sábado remains lowercase and accented.
Common mistake
- Instead of
- La clase es Lunes.
- Try
- La clase es el lunes.
In the middle of this sentence, lunes normally stays lowercase. The schedule pattern also needs el to express on Monday. Capitalisation conventions can differ in headings or at the start of a sentence, but ordinary Spanish prose uses lowercase weekday names.
Practice
Try it yourself
Create a seven-box calendar and place clase on Monday, estudio on Wednesday, and trabajo on Saturday. Say each one-time plan with el. Then make Tuesday study a repeated routine by changing the article.