Days of the week in Spanish

The days of the week are some of the first words worth knowing — you need them for plans, bookings, opening hours and small talk. Spanish has a couple of friendly quirks that make them easy once you know the rules.

The seven days

Three things to remember

• No capital letters. Unlike English, days are written in lowercase: Nos vemos el lunes.
• The week starts on Monday. Spanish calendars begin with lunes, not Sunday.
• They're all masculine — el lunes, el domingo.

"On Monday" vs "on Mondays"

You don't need a word for "on" — you use the article instead:

• el + day = a specific day: el lunes (on Monday).
• los + day = something habitual: los lunes (on Mondays).

Note that five of the days already end in -s, so they don't change in the plural: el martes → los martes. Only sábado and domingo add one: los sábados, los domingos.

A trick to remember them

Five of the seven come from Roman planets and gods, which is why they rhyme with their cousins in French and Italian: lunes (luna/moon), martes (Mars), miércoles (Mercury), jueves (Jupiter), viernes (Venus). Sábado comes from "Sabbath" and domingo from the Latin for "the Lord's day".

Useful related words

hoy (today), ayer (yesterday), mañana (tomorrow), el fin de semana (the weekend), entre semana (on weekdays), la semana que viene (next week).

Make them stick by saying them

Days live in your memory through use. Navoq has you say them in real sentences — making plans, booking tables, talking about your week — out loud and with pronunciation feedback, so they're there when you need them.