Italian Vocabulary
Knowing how to say the date in Italian is one of the basic things you should learn early in your Italian-learning journey.
You will definitely need to be familiar with the days of the week and of the months in Italian, to learn how to talk about dates and plans about your daily life. So, without farther due.... Let’s get to it now!
Table Of Contents New Related Vocabularies in Italian The Days in Italian
New Related Vocabularies in Italian
Before we dive into the main topic, let's study some words that will be used in the following lesson.
Many of these words are going to be used in the examples below, so make sure to learn them before moving further ahead.
Vocabulary Builder
Calendario – Calendar
Giorno – Day Oggi – Today Ieri – Yesterday Domani – Tomorrow L’altro ieri – The day before yesterday Dopodomani – The day after tomorrow Settimana – Week Fine settimana – Weekend Mese – Month Anno – Year Data – Date
The Days of the Week
As already said, knowing the days of the week (giorni della settimana) in Italian is an important skill to learn.
Here are the Italian days of the week:
lunedì – Monday martedì – Tuesday mercoledì – Wednesday giovedì – Thursday venerdì – Friday sabato – Saturday domenica – Sunday
Remember: Unlike English, i giorni della settimana are not capitalized. Also, the Italian week starts on Monday rather than Sunday.
On lunedì, martedì, mercoledì, giovedì, and venerdì the accent is in the final vowel -ì. In this case, the stress falls on the last syllable.
Keep in mind that like all other accented nouns in Italian, lunedì, martedì, mercoledì, giovedì, and venerdì are invariable and don’t change in their plural form. Sabato and domenica, instead have regular plural forms when needed: i sabati e le domeniche
Let’s look at some examples:
Ci vediamo martedì! – See you on Tuesday! Vuoi venire a cena da me sabato sera? – Would you like to come over for dinner on Saturday night?
Sei impegnata venerdì prossimo? – Are you busy next Friday?
I lunedì sono giorni impegnativi – Mondays are busy days.
Qual è il tuo giorno di riposo? Il giovedì –
When is your day off? It's on Thursday.
The days of the week are all masculine except for domenica (Sunday), which is feminine. As you can see from the examples above, definite articles are not used before the days of the week.
Oggi è sabato – Today is Saturday. NO Oggi è il sabato Domenica è il mio compleanno – Tomorrow is Sunday. NO La domenica è il mio compleanno
Except When you are talking about a recurring event. Have a look at these examples to get an idea of how it works:
Il ristorante è aperto il martedì e il giovedì – The office is open to the public on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Io vado in palestra il sabato e la domenica – I go to the gym every Saturday and Sunday
Il venerdì dormo fino a tardi – All Saturdays I sleep late.
Set the Italian days of the week to music There are some great children’s songs out there that can help you memorize them. One of the most popular one is “I giorni della settimana” @MelaMusicTv.
Here are the lyrics:
Lunedì faccio un saltello, Martedì con mio fratello, Mercoledì mangiamo la pizza, Giovedì giriamo la piazza, Venerdì è una bella giornata, Sabato bevo un’aranciata, Domenica è l’ultimo giorno, con la mia famiglia torno.
[Eng] Monday, I take a jump, Tuesday with my brother, Wednesday, we eat pizza, Thursday, we walk around the square, Friday is a beautiful day, Saturday, I drink orange juice, Sunday is the last day; with my family I return.
Months in Italian
Now let’s move on to the months of the year. In Italian, most of the words for months are rather similar to those in English.
Gennaio – January Febbraio – February Marzo – March Aprile – April Maggio – May Giugno – June Luglio – July Agosto – August Settembre – September Ottobre – October Novembre – November Dicembre – December
Let's take a look at some examples: Il mio compleanno è a luglio – My birthday is in July.
Agosto è il mio mese preferito – Augst is my favorite month of the year A settembre incomincia la scuola –The school starts in September. In Ottobre è autunno – On October is autumn. Here's come a song in our help to remember these last vocabularies. Do you remember the children’s song that begins: “Thirty days has September, April, June, and November”? The exact same song exists in Italian! Listening to it will help you remember not only how many days has each month but the name of the months themselves.
ITA: Trenta giorni ha novembre, con aprile, giugno e settembre, di ventotto ce n’è uno, tutti gli altri ne han trentuno.
How to say the date in Italian
Knowing how to talk about the date is essential for making plans, appointments, reservations and travel arrangements. It can be trickier than you’d think. Dates are a little bit different in Italian than in English, but they are not so difficult once you learn the formulas and rules.
As you can imagine, knowing the numbers in Italian is essential for formulating dates.
It will help to take a look at them before learning how to say and write the date.
How to ask the date in Italian
Che giorno è oggi? – What day is it today?
Quanti ne abbiamo oggi? – (Literally: How many do we have today?) What’s the date today?
You can also ask for a more specific date:
Che giorno è Pasqua quest’anno? – What day will Easter be this year?
Che giorno parti? – What day are you leaving? Qual è la tua data di nascita? – What is your date of birth?
Saying the date:
The most important thing to remember is that in Italian the month is said after the day: Oggi è il 20 novembre/ di novembre – Today is May 15th.
Saying il 20 novembre o il 20 di novembre is the same. The -di add just more emphasise on the day you are referring to.
Ieri era il 02 giugno, la festa della Repubblica – Yesterday was June 2nd, the Republic Day
Domani è il 3 novembre – Tomorrow is November 3rd.
SO: The structure to follow is: (article)+ cardinal number + month + year
For example: Il 6 dicembre 2019 – December 6th, 2019 Il 29 settembre 2020 – September 29th, 2020
As you might have noticed, cardinal numbers are used rather than ordinal number when talking about dates in Italian. Except for the first day of the month where ordinal number is needed.
Oggi è il primo settembre/Oggi è il primo di settembre – Today is September first.
Dopodomani è il primo maggio, la Festa dei lavoratori – The day after tomorrow is May first, International Workers’ Day.
For all other dates, you have to use due, tre, quattro, cinque and so on.
Some examples will make it clearer: Anna è nata il 21 giugno 2002 – Anna was born on June 21, 2002.
La scoperta dell'America fu il 12 ottobre 1492 – The discovery of America was on October 12, 1492.
When writing the date in numeric form, the format is the same as in much of Europe: → dd/mm/yyyy.
So, to express December 05, 2019, you would write 05/12/2019 instead of 12/02/2019. If you write 12/02/2019, it would be assumed you were talking about February.
To sum up…
Unlike in English, the days of the week DON’T have a capital letter in Italian.
The names of months are not capitalized in Italian.
The Italian week starts on Monday rather than Sunday.
The day always comes before the month in Italian.
The ordinal number is used only on the first day of the month. For all the other days you use the equivalent of two, three, four and so on.
To write the date, the order you would use is article+day+month+year, with no punctuation in between.
Well done for making it to the end of this lesson! If you had difficulties on remembering the Italian number, make sure to review them here.
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