🇪🇸 Spanish Days of the Week
Learn and practice spanish days of the week with Web Speech API. Click the play button to hear the correct pronunciation.
How to pronounce the Spanish days of the week
Spanish weekday names are short and phonetically regular, but three of them contain sounds that English speakers routinely get wrong. Work through the transcriptions before using the audio buttons above.
| Spanish | IPA | Stress | What to watch |
|---|---|---|---|
| lunes | /ˈlu.nes/ | LU-nes | Pure /u/, never the English yoo |
| martes | /ˈmaɾ.tes/ | MAR-tes | Single tap /ɾ/, not the English approximant |
| miércoles | /ˈmjeɾ.ko.les/ | MIÉR-co-les | Stress on the first syllable — the written accent marks it |
| jueves | /ˈxwe.βes/ | JUE-ves | j is /x/, as in Scottish loch |
| viernes | /ˈbjeɾ.nes/ | VIER-nes | v is pronounced /b/ |
| sábado | /ˈsa.βa.ðo/ | SÁ-ba-do | Both b and d soften between vowels |
| domingo | /doˈmiŋ.ɡo/ | do-MIN-go | The n becomes /ŋ/ before g |
Grammar rules English speakers get wrong
- No capital letters. Spanish writes lunes, not Lunes, even at the start of a date.
- No preposition for "on". On Monday is el lunes, not en lunes. Using en here is one of the most common English-speaker errors.
- The article changes the meaning. El lunes means one specific Monday; los lunes means every Monday. Voy el lunes is "I'm going on Monday"; voy los lunes is "I go on Mondays".
- All seven are masculine: el martes, el sábado.
- Plurals are irregular. Monday to Friday already end in -s and do not change: el lunes / los lunes. Only sábado and domingo add one: los sábados, los domingos.
- The week starts on Monday in Spanish-speaking countries, so calendars run lunes to domingo.
Where the names come from
Five of the seven come straight from Roman planetary gods, which is why they resemble the French and Italian names: lunes from Luna (moon), martes from Mars, miércoles from Mercury, jueves from Jupiter (Iovis) and viernes from Venus. The weekend breaks the pattern: sábado comes from Hebrew shabbat and domingo from Latin dies Dominicus, the Lord's day.
Useful phrases for practice
- ¿Qué día es hoy? — What day is it today?
- Hoy es miércoles. — Today is Wednesday.
- Nos vemos el viernes. — See you on Friday.
- Trabajo los sábados. — I work on Saturdays.
- El lunes pasado / el lunes que viene — last Monday / next Monday.
- El fin de semana — the weekend.