Days of the Week in Spanish (with Pronunciation)

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The days of the week are some of the first Spanish words you'll use in real life, and in this guide I'll give you all seven, with a clear pronunciation guide, the grammar rules that catch almost every learner off guard, the surprisingly fun story behind where the names came from, and a bank of everyday phrases to build around them. By the end you'll be able to make plans, talk about your week and understand a calendar without hesitating.

They're also one of the easiest, highest-payoff bits of vocabulary in the whole language. There are only seven of them, you already know the concept cold, and once you've got the pattern down you'll use it constantly. Learn them properly once and they're yours for good.

I lean on this vocabulary constantly myself. Whether I'm arranging to meet someone, booking a class or working out when the shops are open, the days of the week come up within the first few sentences of nearly any real conversation, and having them ready makes you sound far more capable than you actually are yet.

The Seven Days of the Week in Spanish

Spanish	Pronunciation	English
lunes	LOO-nes	Monday
martes	MAR-tes	Tuesday
miércoles	MYAIR-koh-les	Wednesday
jueves	HWEH-ves	Thursday
viernes	VYAIR-nes	Friday
sábado	SAH-bah-doh	Saturday
domingo	doh-MEEN-goh	Sunday

Two of these carry written accents, and they're not optional extras. Miércoles has an accent on the e (mee-ÉR-koh-les), and sábado has one on the first a (SÁ-ba-do). Both mark where the stress falls, on a syllable that wouldn't otherwise be stressed, so leaving the accent off in writing is a genuine spelling mistake.

On pronunciation more broadly, remember that Spanish j (as in jueves) is pronounced like an English h, so it comes out as “HWEH-ves” rather than anything close to the English j sound. If you want a reliable way to drill pronunciation with a native speaker guiding you, our SpanishPod101 review covers the audio-lesson platform I recommend for listen-and-repeat practice.

Spanish Days Are Not Capitalised

Here's the rule that catches almost everyone, and it's worth learning now so it becomes automatic. In Spanish, the days of the week are not capitalised. You write lunes, not Lunes. The only time a day takes a capital letter is when it opens a sentence, exactly as any other word would in that position.

This feels wrong to English speakers, since we capitalise our days without a second thought. Spanish treats them like ordinary nouns instead, and the same rule applies to the months and the seasons. Get into the lowercase habit early, because a capitalised Lunes sitting mid-sentence is one of those small things that immediately flags a text as written by a non-native speaker.

The Spanish Week Starts on Monday

Another difference to get used to early: the Spanish week starts on lunes (Monday), not on Sunday like it does in the US. Look at a calendar printed in Spain and you'll see lunes in the leftmost column with domingo trailing at the end, the reverse of the layout many English speakers grew up with. That's the layout of the international date standard, and it's what you'll meet in most Spanish-language diaries, apps and booking sites. Mind you, some printed calendars in Latin America follow the US-style Sunday-first layout, so don't be thrown if you spot one.

It's a small thing, but it matters the first time you're reading a printed calendar or booking something online. Get used to seeing the week start on Monday and loads of everyday confusion disappears.

How to Use Days of the Week in a Sentence

Spanish has no direct word for “on” when talking about days, and the pattern trips learners who go hunting for one. Instead, the definite article does the job on its own.

• el lunes = on Monday
• los lunes = on Mondays

So el lunes voy al gimnasio means “on Monday I'm going to the gym”, and los lunes voy al gimnasio means “on Mondays I go to the gym” (every Monday, as a habit). Drop the article entirely (voy al gimnasio lunes) and the sentence simply sounds broken. The article is doing real grammatical work, so it has to be there.

All seven days are masculine, which matters if you're pairing them with adjectives or other agreement patterns. Where it gets genuinely fiddly is the plural. Lunes through viernes are invariable in the plural, meaning the word itself doesn't change and only the article shifts:

• el lunes → los lunes
• el martes → los martes
• el miércoles → los miércoles
• el jueves → los jueves
• el viernes → los viernes

Sábado and domingo, on the other hand, take a normal plural -s:

• el sábado → los sábados
• el domingo → los domingos

There's no deep logic to memorise here: the five weekdays already end in -es or -s and stay put, while the two weekend days follow the ordinary noun rule. Say them out loud a few times in both forms and it settles in fast.

One more phrase worth locking in: el fin de semana means “the weekend”, literally “the end of the week”. You'll hear and use it constantly, usually paired with plans or rest.

Where the Names Actually Come From

This is the part that makes the days properly memorable rather than just a list to drill. Five of the seven Spanish days trace straight back to the Roman gods and the planets named after them.

• lunes comes from Luna, the moon.
• martes comes from Marte, Mars, the god of war.
• miércoles comes from Mercurio, Mercury, the messenger god.
• jueves comes from Júpiter, Jupiter, king of the Roman gods.
• viernes comes from Venus, the goddess of love.

The last two break the pattern, and the story behind them is even better. Sábado comes from the Hebrew Shabbat by way of Latin sabbatum, the day of rest. Domingo comes from the Latin phrase dies dominicus, “the day of the Lord”, reflecting the day's significance in the Christian calendar.

Once you know this, the connections jump out. Martes and Mars, jueves and Jupiter, viernes and Venus, they're right there in the spelling if you look for them. It's a far stickier way to learn the words than rote repetition, and the same Roman scaffolding shows up in French, Italian and Catalan too.

A Bank of Useful Time Phrases

Once the days themselves are solid, these phrases let you actually talk about time in a natural way:

• hoy = today
• mañana = tomorrow
• ayer = yesterday
• anteayer (or antier) = the day before yesterday
• pasado mañana = the day after tomorrow
• esta semana = this week
• la semana que viene / la próxima semana = next week
• la semana pasada = last week
• entre semana = during the week, on weekdays
• el fin de semana = the weekend
• todos los días = every day
• todas las semanas = every week
• de lunes a viernes = Monday to Friday
• cada dos días = every other day
• ¿Qué día es hoy? = What day is it today?

Commit that last one to memory word for word; it's a phrase you'll genuinely reach for. A good set of flashcards makes all fifteen far faster to lock in than reading them once and hoping, and our Anki flashcard guide walks through building spaced-repetition decks that make vocabulary like this stick for good.

Days of the Week in Example Sentences

Here are a few sentences to show the days doing real work:

• Tengo clase de español los lunes y los miércoles. (I have Spanish class on Mondays and Wednesdays.)
• Nos vemos el sábado. (See you on Saturday.)
• ¿Qué día es hoy? Hoy es jueves. (What day is it today? Today is Thursday.)
• Trabajo entre semana, pero descanso el fin de semana. (I work during the week, but I rest on the weekend.)
• El domingo pasado fui a la playa. (Last Sunday I went to the beach.)

Notice how the article carries the weight of “on” wherever English would need it, without a separate preposition anywhere in sight. The one exception is when you're simply naming the day, as in hoy es jueves, where the article drops away. Once that pattern clicks, building your own sentences about your week becomes second nature.

If you want to attach an actual date to any of these plans, you'll need numbers too. Our guide to Spanish numbers covers exactly that, and once you've got days and numbers together, the months of the year in Spanish are the natural next step to round out your full calendar vocabulary.

Put Your Days to Work

The days of the week are just the start. They come alive the moment you stop treating them as a list to memorise and start using them to actually make plans, arrange a class, or tell someone what you did last weekend.

That's the whole philosophy behind how I teach every language: speak from day one, with real people, rather than waiting until you feel ready. If you want a structured way to go from vocabulary like this to genuine conversations, that's exactly what we build inside the Fluent in 3 Months Bootcamp. It's a cohort-based programme where my team and I coach you to actually speak Spanish with other human beings, fast.

For now, though, you've got all seven days, the grammar that trips people up, and the story behind where the names came from. Go and put one of them into your plans this week.