The Italian calendar is based on the ancient Roman system and is composed of seven days.
lunedì (Monday)
martedì (Tuesday)
mercoledì (Thursday)
giovedì (Friday)
sabato (Saturday)
domenica (Sunday).
As you can see, the days from Lunedì to Venerdì end with a stressed vowel “ì”. It means The last vowel must be pronounced higher in pitch (basically, you’ll have tho stress on the last syllable)
English vs Italian: the differences
Do you capitalize days of the week in a sentence ? No, we don’t.
Unlike in English, names of days are not capitalized, (neither the months).
Unlike in English, the days are not preceded by a preposition. While you would say “on” Monday in English, you should say simply lunedì (Monday) in Italian. So, simply, get rid of the “on” in Italian.
Unlike English, in Italian the days can’t be pluralized, so the word Mondays, for example, remains lunedì and does not have a plural form in Italian.
Days of the week and the articles
You should use the article “il” or “la” in front of the day if you want to say that something happens every Monday as a routine.
- il lunedì means every Monday
- il martedì means every Tuesday
- il mercoledì means every Wednesday
- il giovedì means every Thursday
- il venerdì means every Friday
- il sabato means every Saturday
- la domenica means every Sunday
Days of the week without the article
If you use any day of the week without the definite article “il” in Italian, it means that the action will take place the following Monday, Tuesday, etc.
So, saying..
“domenica vado in spiaggia” means next Sunday I’m going to the beach
How to say “last” and “next” in Italian
Last in Italian is “scorso”
Next in Italian is “prossimo”
We tend to use these adjectives with days.
- Lo scorso venerdì or venerdì scorso means last Friday (the letter is more common than the first)
- Domenica prossima means next Sunday
Months of the year in Italian
- gennaio – January
- febbraio – February
- marzo – March
- aprile – April
- maggio – Mai
- giugno – June
- luglio – July
- agosto – August
- settembre – September
- ottobre – October
- novembre – November
- dicembre – December
The prepositions “a” or “in” are used to say “in” before a month in Italian. The expressions “a gennaio” and “in gennaio” are interchangeable. The months of the year are not capitalized in Italian.
