# Days of the Week in Japanese: Origin, Pronunciation & Examples
> Learn the days of the week in Japanese! It's easier than you think, especially with our Japanese Days Easy Guide. Find out more inside...
**URL:** https://migaku.com/blog/japanese/japanese-days-of-the-week
**Last Updated:** 2025-09-13
**Tags:** fundamentals, vocabulary
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So, you’ve got scaling Tokyo Skytree planned for Monday, walking alongside geisha on Kyoto on Wednesday, and the electric nightlife of Osaka’s Dotonbori district from Friday to Sunday… but how are you going to tell anyone about your amazing plans if you don’t know how to say the days of the week in Japanese?!
Well, you’re in the right place. We’re here to teach you about the Japanese days of the week, including their pronunciation, literal meaning, mnemonic devices to help remember them, and even a few example sentences.
We haven’t got all day—get it?—so let’s get started.
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## [Table] Days of the Week in Japanese 📕✏️
Let’s get straight into it. Here are the days of the week in Japanese!
| English | Japanese | Audio |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Monday | 月曜日 (げつようび) | |
| Tuesday | 火曜日 (かようび) | |
| Wednesday | 水曜日 (すいようび) | |
| Thursday | 木曜日 (もくようび) | |
| Friday | 金曜日 (きんようび) | |
| Saturday | 土曜日 (どようび) | |
| Sunday | 日曜日 (にちようび) | |
## Remember the Japanese days of the week with these mnemonics!
Each Japanese day name ends with ようび (yobi), meaning “day of the week.” This in mind, focus on remembering the first kanji:
| English | Japanese | First Kanji
Meaning | Mnemonic |
| :---: | :---: | :---: | ----- |
| Monday | 月曜日 (げつようび) | Moon | **月 (getsu)** sounds like **“get sue”**
→ imagine **a person getting sued on the moon**. |
| Tuesday | 火曜日 (かようび) | Fire | **火 (ka)** sounds like **"car"**
→ on **Tuesday**, a **car speeds through flames**. |
| Wednesday | 水曜日 (すいようび) | Water | **水 (sui)** sounds like **”sue‑ee”**
→ imagine **Sue diving into water**. |
| Thursday | 木曜日 (もくようび) | Tree | **木 (moku)** sounds like **“mocha”**
→ think of a **tree made of mocha**. |
| Friday | 金曜日 (きんようび) | Gold | **金 (kin)** sounds like **“kin”**
→ picture someone’s next of kin, **fully coated in gold**. |
| Saturday | 土曜日 (どようび) | Earth | **土 (do)** sounds like **“dough”**
→ visualize **dough stuck to your shoes**, caked in mud. |
| Sunday | 日曜日 (にちようび) | Sun | **日 (nichi)** sounds like **“knee cheese”**
→ imagine **cheese melting on your knee under the sun**. |
If you close your eyes and really picture each scene, it helps cement it in memory. Especially “knee cheese”—that one might be hard to forget.
## Japanese vocabulary related to the days of the week…
| English | Japanese (kana) | Audio |
| :---: | :---: | :---: |
| Date | 日付 (ひづけ) | |
| Calendar | カレンダー | |
| Week | 週 (しゅう) | |
| Weekend | 週末 (しゅうまつ) | |
| Weekday | 平日 (へいじつ) | |
| Holiday | 休日 (きゅうじつ) | |
| Every day | 毎日 (まいにち) | |
| Today | 今日 (きょう) | |
| Yesterday | 昨日 (きのう) | |
| Tomorrow | 明日 (あした) or (あす) | |
| This week | 今週 (こんしゅう) | |
| Last week | 先週 (せんしゅう) | |
| Next week | 来週 (らいしゅう) | |
## How to use the days of the week in Japanese
- 来週の金曜日に会おう！Let’s meet next Friday.
- 今日は何曜日ですか？ What day of the week is it today?
- 毎日日本語を勉強しています。 I study Japanese every day.
> What is に doing here? The Japanese particle "ni" (に) has multiple uses, but it primarily indicates location, direction, time, and recipient of an action.
Find out more: [What is the Japanese particle for に?](/blog/japanese/japanese-particle-ni)
## Plot twist: Should beginners even learn the days?
Being honest—while learning the days of the week in Japanese is useful, it might not be the most efficient early goal. Why not?
- All end with ようび (yōbi), so until your ear gets used to subtle differences like sui- vs mo-, you might mix them up.
- Some words are much more essential early on. It's better to invest your effort in vocabulary that appears frequently in everyday conversation.
For that reason, many structured courses don’t introduce weekdays until later lessons, after you’ve built some foundational grammar and core vocab. When you finally meet them, you’ll often see them taught with flashcards, example sentences, native audio, and spaced repetition—so you’re not just memorizing the Japanese days in isolation, but learning to use them.
## Increasing your Japanese vocabulary
As you might imagine, the days of the week are pretty common words. They're included in our course. Here's how we teach them:
But here’s the thing… We don't teach the weekdays until lesson 176. There are so many words you can pick up before the days of the week, so that when you eventually do get there, you'll have a wider vocab to be able to learn more from flashcards that include images, example sentences, and audio from a native Japanese speaker.
What's also unique about Migaku's Japan Academy is that each sentence in our course contains only one new word, ensuring that you're always learning something without ever feeling overwhelmed.
_Free for 10 days. No credit card required._
## Now you know the Japanese days 📆
From Monday to Sunday, your Japanese is improving every day! Because if there’s one thing we know to be true every day of the week, it’s this:
> If you consume Japanese media, and you understand some of the messages and sentences within that media, you'll make progress. Period.
So, even if you only have time for a little Japanese practice every day of the week, you’re still heading in the right direction. We’re rooting for you!