Module 6 of 10
Days, months and dates
No capital letters, and the number comes before the month.
Days and months are written in lower case — lundi, mars, septembre — and a transcript that capitalises them reads as English wearing French vocabulary. The date is le, then the number, then the month: le trois mars, le vingt-cinq décembre. The number is a plain one, not an ordinal, with a single exception: the first of the month is le premier. Le trois, not le troisième.
Writing a date in digits goes day first: 03/05 is the third of May, not the fifth of March. This is not a style preference, it is what a French reader will understand, and getting it the American way round on a form is the kind of error nobody catches until it matters. Lundi on its own means Monday; le lundi, with the article, means on Mondays, every week — a small word carrying the difference between one appointment and a habit.
Played by your device’s own French voice. It is a synthetic voice, not a recording of a teacher — close enough to learn the shape of a word, not close enough to copy exactly.
- Lundi, mardi, mercrediMonday, Tuesday, Wednesday — lower case in French
- Jeudi, vendredi, samedi, dimancheThursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday
- Le trois marsThe third of March — a plain number, not a third
- Le premier avrilThe first of April — only the first uses an ordinal
- Mon anniversaire est le douze juinMy birthday is the twelfth of June
- Aujourd'hui, demain, hierToday, tomorrow, yesterday
- Le week-endThe weekend — borrowed whole from English
- On est quel jour ?What day is it? — the ordinary spoken way to ask
Lower case for days and months, le + plain number + month, and le premier for the first. In digits, the day comes first.