Days of the Week in Spanish: Chart, Pronunciation, and Memory Tricks

The days of the week in Spanish, in order

Spanish calendars start the week on Monday, so when you recite the Spanish days of the week, lunes goes first and domingo closes the weekend. Here's the complete chart with a plain-English sound hint and the origin behind each name.

Two things to notice before anything else. First, only miércoles and sábado carry a written accent mark, so those are the two spellings to practice. Second, every day is lowercase. That's not a typo; it's the rule, and we'll get to it in a minute.

Now say the list out loud, in order, three times: lunes, martes, miércoles, jueves, viernes, sábado, domingo. The rhythm does half the memorizing for you. That chant is exactly how kids in Spanish-speaking classrooms learn it.

How do you pronounce the days of the week in Spanish?

Spanish spelling is honest: once you know what each letter does, you can read every day correctly on the first try. Vowels never wobble (e is always "eh", o is always "oh"), and the stress lands on the first syllable of every single day except domingo, which stresses the middle: do-MEEN-go.

Three sounds catch English speakers:

• The j in jueves sounds like an English h. Say "HWEH-vess", not "JWAY-vez".
• The v in viernes sits between an English b and v. "BYAIR-ness" gets you closer to how natives say it.
• The accent marks on miércoles and sábado aren't decoration. They point at the syllable you stress: "MYAIR-koh-less", "SAH-bah-doh".

If any letter sound still feels shaky, the Spanish alphabet lesson walks through all of them with examples.

Three grammar rules that make Spanish days easy

Rule 1: days are never capitalized. English capitalizes Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Spanish doesn't: el lunes, el martes, el miércoles. The Spanish days of the week only take a capital letter when they open a sentence, the same as any ordinary noun. Months follow the same lowercase rule, by the way.

Rule 2: every day is masculine. All seven take el in the singular and los in the plural. You'll never have to guess between el and la here, which makes days one of the friendliest noun groups in Spanish.

Rule 3: plurals cost almost nothing. Monday through Friday already end in -s, so the word itself never changes; only the article does. Saturday and Sunday are the only two that add an -s.

How do you say "on Monday" in Spanish?

Here's the trap: English needs the word "on", so beginners reach for en and say en el lunes. Spanish never uses a preposition with days. The article does all the work.

• el lunes = on Monday, one specific Monday: Te veo el lunes. (I'll see you on Monday.)
• los lunes = on Mondays, every Monday: Tengo clase los lunes. (I have class on Mondays.)

There's one more twist worth locking in early. When you name the day with ser, you drop the article completely: Hoy es jueves (today is Thursday), not Hoy es el jueves. Article for "on", no article after "is". That single pattern covers most day sentences you'll build this month.

¿Qué día es hoy? Asking and answering

Time to use your seven new words. The standard question is ¿Qué día es hoy? ("keh DEE-ah ess oy"), literally "what day is today?". Answers stay short:

• ¿Qué día es hoy? = What day is it today?
• Hoy es martes. = Today is Tuesday.
• Mañana es miércoles. = Tomorrow is Wednesday.
• Ayer fue lunes. = Yesterday was Monday.

Round out the week with these companion words. Watch el día: it ends in -a but it's masculine.

Two of these deserve a closer look. El fin de semana is your weekend; entre semana covers Monday to Friday, handy for sentences like "I only train on weekdays." And mañana pulls double duty: on its own it means "tomorrow", while la mañana means "the morning".

How are the days abbreviated?

You'll meet two systems, both in Monday-first order. School timetables and wall calendars use single letters: L, M, X, J, V, S, D. The X stands for miércoles so it won't collide with martes. Calendar apps usually show three-letter forms instead: lun., mar., mié., jue., vie., sáb. and dom.

Memory tricks: let the planets do the work

This is my favorite part to teach. Monday through Friday in Spanish are named after the same five celestial bodies the Romans used, and English quietly follows the same system with Germanic gods swapped in. Once you see the pairs, the order nearly memorizes itself.

• lunes is the Moon's day, from Latin dies Lunae. English kept the identical idea: Moon-day, Monday. Think "lunar".
• martes belongs to Mars, the war god (dies Martis). Tuesday honors Tiw, a Germanic war god. Same job, different mythology. Think "martial".
• miércoles is Mercury's day (dies Mercurii). English swapped in Woden, better known as Odin, for Wednesday. Think "mercurial".
• jueves comes from Jupiter, the Roman thunder god (dies Iovis). Thursday belongs to Thor, the other thunder god. Think "jovial", from Jove.
• viernes is for Venus, goddess of love (dies Veneris). Friday honors Frigg, the goddess that Germanic speakers matched with Venus.

The weekend trades planets for faith. Sábado descends from Latin sabbatum, the Sabbath, which came through Greek from Hebrew shabbat, the day of rest. Domingo comes from dies Dominicus, Latin for "the Lord's day". You can trace every chain yourself in Wiktionary or in Wikipedia's names of the days of the week.

So here's your chant for the order: Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Sabbath, Lord's day. Five planets and a holy weekend. French runs on the exact same planetary system, so if you ever pick it up, compare the days of the week in French and you'll feel strangely prepared.

The days of the week in action: 10 example sentences

Rules stick when you watch them work. Read these out loud and notice three things: lowercase days, el and los doing the job of "on", and no article after es.

One bonus pattern is hiding in there: de lunes a viernes ("from Monday to Friday") drops the articles entirely. It's a fixed shape you can reuse with any two days: de martes a sábado, de jueves a domingo.

That's the days of the week in Spanish: seven lowercase words, one article trick, and five planets doing the memory work for you. Your mission before bed tonight: say tomorrow's day out loud in Spanish, then write one true sentence about your week, like Tengo yoga los martes. When you're ready to give your week dates and times, Spanish numbers is the natural next lesson, our Spanish learning resources has tools for daily practice, and every lesson lives on the Spanish hub.