Days & Months in Italian: A Beginner's Guide

Most days-and-months guides hand you a translation table and call it a day. The trouble is that a table won’t tell you why your sentence sounds off when you write il domenica, or why a native speaker hears “every Monday” when you meant “this Monday.” Three small rules turn that wordlist into something you can actually plan a week with — and once they click, Italian dates feel almost easy. Let’s start with the days.

The 7 days of the week in Italian

The Italian week starts on Monday, not Sunday. Five of the names come straight from Roman planetary gods and end in -dì (“day,” from Latin dies), with a grave accent on the final ì.

Italian	English
lunedì	Monday
martedì	Tuesday
mercoledì	Wednesday
giovedì	Thursday
venerdì	Friday
sabato	Saturday
domenica	Sunday

Two of them break the -dì pattern: sabato (from the Sabbath) is stressed on the first syllable, SA-ba-to, and domenica (“the Lord’s day”) is do-ME-ni-ca. Neither carries an accent — the accent only lives on the five planetary days like lunedì and mercoledì.

Three rules every wordlist forgets

1. Don’t capitalize them

Unlike English, Italian writes days and months in lowercase unless they open a sentence. So you get Oggi è mercoledì (“Today is Wednesday”) with a capital only because it starts the line, but Vado a Roma lunedì keeps the day lowercase mid-sentence. The same goes for months — a marzo, never a Marzo.

2. All masculine except la domenica

Six days are masculine and take il (il lunedì, il sabato). Domenica is the lone feminine day, so its article and any adjective must agree: you say la domenica scorsa (“last Sunday”), not il domenica scorso. If feminine endings feel shaky, our guide to Italian noun gender rules is worth a detour before you go on.

3. lunedì vs. il lunedì vs. di lunedì

This is the rule that quietly changes your meaning. A bare day name points at one specific day; adding the article (or the preposition di) makes it a weekly habit.

Italian	English
Lunedì vado in palestra.	On Monday I'm going to the gym. (this Monday)
Il lunedì vado in palestra.	On Mondays I go to the gym. (every week)
Di lunedì gli uffici sono affollati.	On Mondays the offices are crowded.
Di domenica mi sveglio tardi.	On Sundays I wake up late.

Making plans: this, next, last

To pin down a particular day, lean on a modifier — and keep domenica feminine throughout.

Italian	English
Ci vediamo questo venerdì!	See you this Friday!
lunedì prossimo	next Monday
la prossima domenica	next Sunday
lunedì scorso	last Monday
domenica scorsa	last Sunday

For a stretch of days, use da… a…: Lavoro da lunedì a venerdì (“I work from Monday to Friday”). The same da marks a start point — Inizio il corso da lunedì (“I start the course from Monday”).

The 12 months in Italian

Every month is masculine and, like the days, stays lowercase mid-sentence. They look comfortingly close to English, but a few hide pronunciation traps.

Italian	English	Sounds like
gennaio	January	jen-NA-yo
febbraio	February	feb-BRA-yo
marzo	March	MAR-tso (z = “ts”)
aprile	April	a-PREE-le
maggio	May	MAJ-jo
giugno	June	JOO-nyo (gn = ñ)
luglio	July	LOO-lyo (gl = “lli”)
agosto	August	a-GOS-to (no “au-”)
settembre	September	set-TEM-bre
ottobre	October	ot-TO-bre
novembre	November	no-VEM-bre
dicembre	December	dee-CHEM-bre

The usual stumbles: giugno’s gn is the Spanish ñ, not a hard g; luglio’s gl sounds like the “lli” in million; and agosto has no English “Au-” diphthong — it’s a-GOS-to. The spelling of marzo trips fewer people up, but remember that z there is a crisp “ts.” To say in a month, you have three options: a ottobre (most conversational, becoming ad aprile before a vowel), in agosto, or the formal nel mese di marzo.

Writing and saying dates

Italian dates follow one tidy formula: il + number + month. You use cardinal numbers for every date except the 1st, which takes the ordinal primo. If your numbers are rusty, the Italian numbers 1 to 100 guide covers everything you’ll need to read a calendar aloud.

Italian	English
il primo maggio	the 1st of May
il 25 dicembre	December 25th
Oggi è il 5 marzo.	Today is March 5th.

Bonus: the four seasons

Rounding out your calendar vocabulary, le stagioni (“the seasons”) use in — with summer and winter also allowing an elided di.

Italian	English	”in [season]“
la primavera	spring	in primavera
l’estate	summer	in estate / d’estate
l’autunno	autumn	in autunno
l’inverno	winter	in inverno / d’inverno

You now have the full kit: the seven days, twelve months, dates, and seasons — plus the agreement and article rules that competitors leave out. For your next step, try writing your real weekly routine using il or di plus a day (“Il martedì studio l’italiano”). It’s the fastest way to make these words feel like yours. And once you’re sketching plans out loud, essential Italian travel phrases will help you turn “see you Friday” into a whole conversation.