Days of the week in Chinese (+ how to say the days and months!)

What day is it today?

(Checks notes...)

Ah! Today is the day you learn to say the days of the week in Chinese. Below you'll find a bunch of tables, vocabulary words, and example sentences related to Chinese weekdays—plus audio recordings so you can check your pronunciation.

Anyway, let's get into it:

[Grammar note] How time fits into sentences in Chinese and English

So, we need to take a quick detour.

The weekdays in Chinese are really easy to learn—you'll have them down in like three minutes. Tops.

What isn't quite so easy, unfortunately, is how to use them.

In English, time words can go pretty much anywhere in a sentence:

In contrast, Chinese isn't as flexible. You've got two main places where you can put time words, and they're both at the beginning of the sentence:

The structures are pretty much interchangeable, so don't overthink this too much. Just remember that when you're scheduling appointments or making plans with friends, you should place the date/time word before the main verb of the sentence.

1. 礼拜 X vs 星期 X: The two main ways to say the days of the week in Chinese

To remember all of the Chinese days of the week, you only need to remember three things:

So, if you know how to count in Chinese, you basically get the weekdays for free!

...The catch is that Chinese has two (actually three) words for "weekday":

Nevertheless, you can basically consider 星期 and 礼拜 to be interchangeable. Chinese speakers use both. As such, while you'll hear both, you can just pick whichever one you like and use it all the time. I personally picked 礼拜 purely because I thought it was easier to pronounce than 星期.

Some example sentences featuring 礼拜 and 星期

Here are a few example sentences utilizing the vocabulary words we looked at above. In each set, the sentence is first written in simplified characters, then traditional ones.

2. 週 X: A more formal way to say the days of the week in Mandarin

The third way you'll see weekdays expressed in Mandarin is via 週 (zhoū). The logic works exactly the same as it does with 礼拜 and 星期: just tack a number onto the end of 週, as shown below:

This is the most formal variant of the three ways to refer to weekdays, and it's also the shortest, so you'll see it in newspapers, business emails, signs, and announcements... but it'll also show up in conversations, text messages, and informal places like that. It really just depends on the person, region, and situation!

Some example sentences featuring 週

3. X 月 Y 号: Combine the days and months of the year in Chinese to make dates

The names of the months in Chinese are also just numbers... but, this time, the number comes first. You may see the months written out entirely in Chinese characters (一月) or with a number plus a character (1 月).

To write dates, just combine a month with #号:

Alternatively, you may also see dates written out like this, especially in emails or when the dates of an event are being listed out on a poster or something like that:

Some bonus vocab related to dates in Chinese

Since you were Googling for how to say the weekdays in Mandarin Chinese, here's a collection of other words I suppose you might also be interested in:

... on the off chance you're trying to figure out how to get started learning Mandarin Chinese

I'm not completely sure how to say this... but

You see, words aren't equally useful. While native speakers know tens of thousands of words, you only actually need to know the ~1,500 most common ones to recognize ~80% of the words you encounter in sentences. Given the disproportionate value provided by these words, learning them should be your first priority as a new learner.

The Migaku Mandarin Academy teaches you these 1,500 words—and, surprise surprise, the days of the week are included.

Our course is flashcard-based: each flashcard contains a vocabulary word, a sentence featuring that word, an image, and recordings of native speakers saying the word and the sentence.

What's special about our course is that each "next" flashcard contains only one word that you haven't learned yet, making the learning process super smooth.

Try Migaku for free

(Oh—if you're completely new to Chinese, our Migaku Chinese Fundamentals course teaches you how to read and correctly pronounce pinyin—including tones!)

Days in Chinese, weeks in Chinese, months in Chinese, years in Chinese

Nice 💪

But now you've got a bigger challenge: language learning is a marathon, not a sprint. Just sheer willpower won’t be enough—you've got to find ways to enjoy the process.

Remember this:

So go ahead—spend days, weeks, months, and years enjoying Chinese content. The more fun you have with the language, the faster you'll progress. Enjoy!