🇬🇧 British English Days of the Week
Learn and practice british english days of the week with Web Speech API. Click the play button to hear the correct pronunciation.
The pronunciation detail most courses skip
Every English weekday ends in -day, and how you pronounce that ending is the clearest single marker of a
British accent in these words. In careful speech it is /deɪ/, rhyming with say. In ordinary
conversational British English it is normally reduced to /di/, so Monday is
/ˈmʌndi/ rather than /ˈmʌndeɪ/.
General American keeps the full /deɪ/ far more consistently. Neither is wrong, but using the strong
form in every context is one of the things that makes learner English sound careful rather than natural.
| Day | Careful | Conversational (British) | What to watch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | /ˈmʌndeɪ/ | /ˈmʌndi/ | First vowel is /ʌ/, as in cup |
| Tuesday | /ˈtjuːzdeɪ/ | /ˈtʃuːzdi/ | British often has /tʃ/; American has /tuːz/ |
| Wednesday | /ˈwenzdeɪ/ | /ˈwenzdi/ | Two syllables, not three; the first d is silent |
| Thursday | /ˈθɜːzdeɪ/ | /ˈθɜːzdi/ | Starts with /θ/; no r pronounced in British English |
| Friday | /ˈfraɪdeɪ/ | /ˈfraɪdi/ | Diphthong /aɪ/ |
| Saturday | /ˈsætədeɪ/ | /ˈsætədi/ | Three syllables; often reduced to Sat'day |
| Sunday | /ˈsʌndeɪ/ | /ˈsʌndi/ | Same /ʌ/ as Monday |
Wednesday is the one to fix first
Wednesday has two syllables in speech: WENZ-day. The first d is silent and the middle e disappears entirely. Learners who pronounce all three written syllables are immediately identifiable as having learned the word by reading.
The silent letters are a fossil. The word comes from Wodnesdæg, the day of Woden, and the spelling preserves a pronunciation that disappeared centuries ago.
Stress and rhythm
All seven days are stressed on the first syllable, without exception. The -day ending is never stressed, which is precisely why it reduces so readily. In a phrase such as See you on Friday, the whole phrase has one main stress, on FRI, and both on and -day compress around it.
Capitalisation and prepositions
- English always capitalises weekday names, unlike Spanish, French, Portuguese and Italian, which never do. This is a frequent writing error for speakers of those languages.
- Use on with a specific day: on Monday, on Friday evening.
- The plural means "every": I work Saturdays means every Saturday. British English also allows on Saturdays.
- The preposition is often dropped in informal speech: See you Tuesday.
Where the names come from
English is unusual among European languages in using Norse and Germanic gods rather than Roman ones. Tuesday belongs to Tiw, Wednesday to Woden, Thursday to Thor and Friday to Frigg. Only three keep the Roman pattern: Sunday, Monday and Saturday, the last being the sole English weekday still named after a Roman god, Saturn.