Mark your calendar: Today you’ll learn how to tell the date in Spanish! 🗓️ Discover how to write dates (las fechas) in Spanish so that you can enjoy planning holidays and events, and make sure you’re there on time. We’ll cover topics such as writing dates in Spanish, asking and responding to “What date is it?” and learning the days of the week and months in Spanish.

Let’s talk about the date in Spanish

When it comes to writing dates, there are a few differences between Spanish and English. First, the days of the week and months in Spanish are only capitalized when placed at the beginning of a sentence. For example Jueves 29 de marzo (Thursday, March 29th) or Los sábados son mis días favoritos de la semana (Saturdays are my favorite day of the week.) Second, the days of the week and months are always masculine and single in Spanish. Third, Spanish dates use a cardinal number (while English dates use an ordinal number) and are ordered by day, month, and year (not month, day, and year as in English):

• Spanish: 29 de marzo, 2023
• English: March 29th, 2023

The only time you won’t use an ordinal number for a date in Spanish is for the first day (primero) of each month:

• Spanish: El primero de abril
• English: April 1st

Remember this formula for dates in Spanish: el + day + de + month + de/del + year! For example, el treinta de marzo de dos mil veintitrés or el 30 de marzo de 2023 (March 30th, 2023).

Days of the week in Spanish

Learn how to write los días de la semana in Spanish:

• Monday — lunes
• Tuesday — martes
• Wednesday — miércoles
• Thursday — jueves
• Friday — viernes
• Saturday — sábado
• Sunday — domingo

If you want to talk about a specific day of the week, remember to add the article el in front of it: Me voy el viernes (I’m leaving on Friday.) And if you’re talking about something that happens on a weekly basis, use the article los: Yo juego los domingos (I play on Sundays.)

… what about the months in Spanish?

Same as with the days of the week, los meses del año aren’t capitalized in Spanish:

• January — enero
• February — febrero 
• March — marzo
• April — abril
• May — mayo
• June — junio
• July — julio
• August — augusto
• September — septiembre
• October — octubre
• November — noviembre
• December — diciembre 

If you’re talking about a specific month, use en: Voy a Peru en julio (I’m going to Peru in July.) Now you know the days and months of the year in Spanish, so let’s move on to talking about dates in Spanish.

Have a convo about dates in Spanish

Learn how to ask and reply to ¿Qué fecha es? (What date is it?) in Spanish. There are a few questions commonly used to ask about days and dates:

• ¿Qué fecha es?  (What date is it?) ¿Qué fecha es hoy? (What date is it today?)
• ¿Cuál fecha es? (Which date is it?) ¿Cuál fecha es hoy? (Which date is it today?)
• ¿Qué día es hoy? (What day is today?)

And here’s how you can reply in Spanish:

• Hoy es el 4. (Today is the 4th.)
• Hoy es el primero. (Today is the first.)
• Hoy es el 1 de mayo. (Today is May 1st.)
• Hoy es el primero de noviembre. (Today is November 1st.)
• Hoy es martes. (Today is Tuesday.)
• Hoy es miércoles, el 7 de junio. (Today is Wednesday, June 7th.)
• Hoy es el 19 de octubre. (Today is October 19th.)
• Hoy es el 14 de febrero. (Today is February 14th.)

Spanish vocabulary you should know

You’ve learned how to talk about days, months, and dates in Spanish. Next is mastering the calendar vocabulary (vocabulario del calendario), and here are some must-know words in Spanish:

• date — la fecha
• today — hoy
• tomorrow — mañana
• yesterday — ayer
• the day before yesterday — anteayer / antes de ayer
• the day after tomorrow — pasado mañana
• week — la semana 
• weekday — el día de la semana
• the weekend — el fin de semana
• next week — la semana que viene / próxima semana
• last week — la semana pasada
• month — el mes
• year — el año
• leap year — el año bisiesto
• decade — la década / el decenio
• century — el siglo

That’s all folks! If you want more Spanish lessons, download our free Spanish conversation course ebook, and sign up for our weekly newsletter. Thanks ❤️