Days of the Week in French — La Semaine Word List
On this page
La Semaine
The days of the week in French — seven days, zero capital letters
Les 7 jours 📅
Parler de la semaine 🗓️
🔑 Key facts
- No capitals. The French language never capitalizes days (or months): lundi, not Lundi — unless the word starts a sentence.
- All masculine. Every weekday is a masculine word: le lundi, un dimanche pluvieux. Le jour is masculine; la semaine, contrarily, is feminine.
- The week in French starts on Monday. In France, every calendar runs lundi → dimanche, so the week-end sits together at the end, as it should.
- Le lundi = every Monday. Add le for a habit — le lundi, je nage (on Mondays, I swim). Drop it for one specific day — lundi, je nage (this Monday, I swim).
- The plural takes -s: tous les lundis, les samedis, les dimanches.
🎬 The 20-second version
5 quick questions on « Days of the Week in French » — guess before the reveal. Practise with the free games → Open this short as a page — transcript included →
🗣️ Pronunciation — how to say the days
| French | English | How to say it |
|---|---|---|
| lundi | Monday | luh(n)-DEE |
| mardi | Tuesday | mar-DEE |
| mercredi | Wednesday | mair-kruh-DEE |
| jeudi | Thursday | zhuh-DEE |
| vendredi | Friday | vah(n)-druh-DEE |
| samedi | Saturday | sam-DEE |
| dimanche | Sunday | dee-MAHNSH |
| la semaine | the week | lah suh-MEN |
| le week-end | the weekend | luh wee-KEND |
| aujourd’hui | today | oh-zhoor-DWEE |
| demain | tomorrow | duh-MA(N) |
| hier | yesterday | yair |
French pronunciation tip: the final -DEE is crisp and short — no English glide. And (n) marks a nasal vowel: let it hum in your nose and don’t actually pronounce the n.
🪐 Where the day names come from
Like English, the French week is a little tour of Roman gods and their planets. Every weekday ends in -di, from the Latin root dies (day):
- lundi — the Moon’s day (la Lune), exactly like Mon(moon)day.
- mardi — Mars’s day. Yes, that mardi — Mardi Gras is “Fat Tuesday”.
- mercredi — Mercury’s day; English swapped in Woden (Wednesday).
- jeudi — Jupiter’s day; English gave it to Thor (Thursday).
- vendredi — Venus’s day; English chose Freya (Friday).
- samedi — not a planet: from the Latin sambati dies, the Sabbath day. English kept Saturn’s day (Saturday).
- dimanche — from dies dominica, “the Lord’s day” — the same root behind Spanish domingo.
Memory trick: chant the five weekdays as one rhythm — lundi, mardi, mercredi, jeudi, vendredi — and let the -di keep the beat. Then the week-end breaks the rules, exactly as a weekend should: samedi hides its Sabbath, and dimanche cheekily moves the di to the front.
🔊 Useful phrases
🔊 Example sentences
✍️ Practice
every Tuesday = ___ mardi (the article of habit)
Show answer
le
Wednesday = mer___ (Mercury’s day)
Show answer
credi
Saturday + Sunday = le ___-end
Show answer
week
On est quel ___ ? (what day is it?)
Show answer
jour
🎮 Practise this with games
❓ Days of the week in French — FAQ
Are French days of the week capitalized?
No. French does not capitalize days, months or languages: write lundi, mardi, mercredi in lowercase unless the word opens a sentence. Capitalizing them is the quickest way to look like an English speaker on paper — an easy fix once you know the rule.
How do you memorize the days of the week in French?
Learning the days is mostly rhythm. Chant lundi–vendredi in one breath and let the -di endings carry the beat, then anchor the weekend as “the two that break the pattern”. Attach each weekday to its planet (mardi = Mars, jeudi = Jupiter), and use the days daily: say today’s date out loud each morning, like a five-second word of the day habit.
Are there similarities between the French and English day names?
Plenty — both weeks descend from the Roman planet-gods. Lundi and Monday are each the Moon’s day, and Saturday keeps Saturn where samedi rerouted through the Sabbath. Mid-week, English swapped Roman gods for Norse ones: mercredi belongs to Mercury while Wednesday belongs to Woden, and jeudi is Jupiter’s day while Thursday is Thor’s.
What gender are the French weekdays?
All seven are masculine — le lundi, le samedi, un dimanche de pluie — because le jour itself is masculine. La semaine, however, is feminine: the week is la, but every day inside it is le.
Do the French use the same abbreviations for the days as in English?
No. On a French calendar the abbreviation for each day is its first three letters — lun., mar., mer., jeu., ven., sam., dim. — or a single letter in tight grids: L M M J V S D. Note the order: the French week starts on Monday, never Sunday.
What are the 12 months in French?
janvier, février, mars, avril, mai, juin, juillet, août, septembre, octobre, novembre, décembre — also lowercase, all masculine. Once la semaine feels automatic, the months in French are the natural next list: browse the free vocabulary lists.
Go further: saying the day uses the verb être — On est lundi. Nail every form with the être conjugation chart.
Want to sound like native French speakers by next mercredi? Learn French with Xavier, a native teacher — book a free lesson →
