How to say the days of the week in Korean
Last updated: February 7, 2025
So you're jamming along to 7 Days a Week by Jung Kook (don't worry, we don't judge here) and it occurs to you that you don't know how to say the days of the week in Korean.
Today, we're gonna fix that. 🫡
[Table] Days of the Week in Korean 📕✏️
Here's a table with each of the days of the week in both English and Korean.
- They're all three-syllable words, so in this first table we've separated the Romanized text up; hopefully it's a bit easier to pronounce them that way!
- The first audio file pronounces each syllable slowly and separately once, then says the word normally, so if you don't know anything about pronunciation, listen to the recording for Monday first—the rest of the words follow the same structure
English | Korean (Romanization) | Audio | Hanja |
|---|---|---|---|
Monday | 월요일 (Wol yo il) | 月曜日 | |
Tuesday | 화요일 (Hwa yo il) | 火曜日 | |
Wednesday | 수요일 (Su yo il) | 水曜日 | |
Thursday | 목요일 (Mok yo il) | 木曜日 | |
Friday | 금요일 (Geum yo il) | 金曜日 | |
Saturday | 토요일 (To yo il) | 土曜日 | |
Sunday | 일요일 (Il yo il) | 日曜日 |
Hanja are no longer used in North or South Korea (beyond for names in official documents), so you don't need to worry about that last column... but it'll help us a bit in this next section ꜜꜜꜜ
Remember the Korean days of the week with these mnemonics!
While Korea does not use any Hanja anymore—even native speakers don't really know them—we can make convenient use of them here. As we touch on in our post on the Korean alphabet, each hanja means something.
- 월요일 (Monday)'s hanja is 月, moon, so it literally means "moon day"
- 화요일 (Tuesday)'s hanja is 火, fire, so it literally means "fire day"
- 수요일 (Wednesday)'s hanja is 水, water, so it literally means "water day"
- 목요일 (Thursday)'s hanja is 木, tree, so it literally means "tree day"
- 금요일 (Friday)'s hanja is 金, gold, so it literally means "gold day"
- 토요일 (Saturday)'s hanja is 土, earth (as in dirt), so we'll call it "dirt day"
- 일요일 (Sunday)'s hanja is 日, sun, so it literally means "sun day"
And since each day of the week ends in 요일 ("day of the week"), all you have to do to remember them is figure out a way to remember the part of the weekday that comes before 요일.
And Hanja will help us do just that.
In the below table:
- Bold text shows the Hanja's (and thus weekday's) meaning
- "Quoted" text is a clue for Hangul pronunciation
- Underlined text is a clue for English pronunciation
English | Korean (Hanja) | Hanja | Hanja Meaning | Connection | Mnemonic |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Monday | 월요일 (Wol-yoil) | 月 (월) | Moon | 월 sounds like "wolf" (without the F) | To remember 월요일 (Monday), imagine a giant "wolf", sitting on a pile of money, howling at the moon. |
Tuesday | 화요일 (Hwa-yoil) | 火 (화) | Fire | 화 (hwa) sounds like "hot" (without the T) | To remember 화요일 (Tuesday), imagine sitting between two giant bonfires —화- 화- "HOOOT"! |
Wednesday | 수요일 (Su-yoil) | 水 (수) | Water | 수 (su) sounds kind of like the beginning of "sw"imming | To remember 수요일 (Wednedsay), imagine Santa Clause going "sw"imming in a lake while wearing a wedding dress . |
Thursday | 목요일 (Mok-yoil) | 木 (목) | Tree | 목 (mok) sounds like "mug" | To remember 목요일 (Thursday), imagine some avant-garde bonsai artist: he has thirty "mugs" lined up in a row, a small tree growing out of each one |
Friday | 금요일 (Geum-yoil) | 金 (금) | Gold | 금 (geum) sounds kind of like "gum" | To remember 금요일 (Friday), imagine frying a piece of "gum"— see the crispy gold coating that forms around it. Yum! |
Saturday | 토요일 (To-yoil) | 土 (토) | Earth (dirt) | 토 (to) sounds like "toe" | To remember 토요일 (Saturday), imagine a satellite with legs, planting its big hairy "toes" firmly into the dirt to get a more "grounded" signal |
Sunday | 일요일 (Il-yoil) | 日 (일) | Sun | 일 (il) sounds kind of like "ill" | To remember 일요일 (Sunday), imagine someone who is very "ill", laying in a hospital bed, unable to move, watching the sun rise |
This particular "see-link-go" mnemonic technique comes from 6x USA Memory Champion Nelson Dellis. If you're struggling to remember one of the days in Korean, don't just read the sentence: close your eyes, really imagine the description I've given you, and ham it up even further!
Some phrases and bonus Korean vocabulary related to the days of the week...
Since you Googled something related to learning the days of the week, here's some other words related to time in Korean you might also be interested in:
English | Korean (Romanization) | Audio |
|---|---|---|
Date | 날짜 (naljja) | |
Calendar | 달력 (dallyeok) | |
Weekend | 주말 (jumal) | |
Weekday | 평일 (pyeongil) | |
Holiday | 휴일 (hyuil) | |
Every day | 매일 (maeil) | |
Today | 오늘 (oneul) | |
Yesterday | 어제 (eoje) | |
Tomorrow | 내일 (naeil) | |
The day after tomorrow | 모레 (more) | |
The day before yesterday | 그저께 (geujeokke) | |
This week | 이번 주 (ibeon ju) | |
Last week | 지난 주 (jinan ju) | |
Next week | 다음 주 (daeum ju) |
And now here's a few Korean phrases so you can see how these vocabulary get used with the days of the week:
- 다음 주 월요일에 제주도에 갈 수 있어요.
da-eum ju wolyoil-e jejudo-e gal su isseoyo.
I'll go to Jeju Island next Monday. - 이번 금요일에는 휴가를 쓸 거예요.
ibeon geumyoil-eneun hyugaleul sseul geoyeyo.
I'll take a day of vacation this Friday. - 오늘은 무슨 요일이에요?
oneul-eun museun yoil-ieyo?
Which day of the week is it today? - 토요일에 시간 있어요?
toyoil-e sigan isseoyo?
(Do you) have time on Saturday? - 저는 매일 한국어를 말해요.
jeoneun maeil hangugeo-leul malhaeyo.
I speak Korean every day.
[Plot twist] Don't go out of your way to learn the Korean days—here's why
... This is kind of awkward.
While this is a post to help you learn and remember the Korean days of the week, I don't actually think beginners should intentionally go out of their way to do that.
There are two big reason for this:
- They all end in -yoil, so you'll get them mixed up if you learn them all at once
- Some words in a language are much more frequently used than other words, and you want your time to go to the vocabulary words most likely to benefit you now
#2 is especially important, so we built a course around the most common ~1,200 Korean vocabulary words. While native speakers know tens of thousands of words, learning the top 1,000 will let you recognize 80% of the words that appear in Korean sentences. (Statistics, man! It's like magic.)
Oh—and, 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:
The thing is, we don't teach weekdays until lesson 123. When we ran the data, it was clear that there was a lot of other stuff worth learning first. When you eventually do get to the weekdays, you'll learn them via flashcards that include images, example sentences, and audio from a native Korean speaker.
What's unique about Migaku's Korean Academy is that each "next" sentence in our course contains only one new word, ensuring that you're always learning something new but never overwhelmed.
I'm biased, of course, but it's pretty cool 👍
Remember: The best way to practice your Korean skills is by interacting with the language
If you really want to learn Korean, you need to understand this Golden Rule of Language Learning:
The way we make progress in any language, including the Korean language, is by interacting with it. If you consume Korean media, and understand the messages within that media, you will make progress. Period.
So—hot take—don't go out of your way to master the days of the week, the months in Korean, Korean numbers, or anything like that.
As you spend more time in Korean, that stuff will sink in and become second nature.
Good luck, friend! 💜