How To Read, Write and Say The Date In French

In French, the format for writing the date is: Day of the week + Number + Month + Year. For example, write le lundi 25 décembre (2023), le 25 décembre or 25/12/23 to express what would be 12/25/23 in the American format. This post covers how to say, read and write the date in French in detail.

In order to say the date in French it is necessary to know the numbers through thirty. Here you can visit our French numbers page.

Days of the week

In order to say the date correctly it is necessary to learn the days of the week and months of the year. First let’s look at the days of the week (les jours de la semaine).

The days are very simple and quite straightforward and the pronunciation is not very difficult. Note that in French the days of the week are written in the lower case and not capitalized like in English.

ENGLISH	FRENCH	PRONUNCIATION
Monday	lundi	landee
Tuesday	mardi	mahrdee
Wednesday	mercredi	mehrkredee
Thursday	jeudi	zhurdee
Friday	vendredi	vahngdrerdee
Saturday	samedi	sahmdee
Sunday	dimanche	deemahngsh

Review the days of the week with Alexa’s Youtube video:

Months of the year

Generally, the months are quite easy to pronounce with the exceptions of June (juin) and July (juillet).

Please also note that French write the months in the lower case. Thus, those aren’t mistakes on the following table!

ENGLISH	FRENCH	PRONUNCIATION	SOUNDS LIKE
January	janvier	ʒɑ̃vje	zhahnvyay
February	février	fevʀije	fayvreeyay
March	mars	maʀs	mahrs
April	avril	avʀil	ahvreel
May	mai	mɛ	may
June	juin	ʒɥɛ̃	zhwang
July	juillet	ʒɥijɛ	zhweeyah
August	août	u(t)	oot
Septembre	septembre	sɛptɑ̃bʀ	sehptahngbr
October	octobre	ɔktɔbʀ	novahngbr
November	novembre	nɔvɑ̃bʀ	novahngbr
Decembre	décembre	desɑ̃bʀ	dayssahngbr

Alexa on YouTube does a nice job teaching the months of the year:

How to talk about the date in French

How to ask the date

To ask somebody the date, ask:

Quelle est la date aujourd’hui? What the date today?

How to say the date

There are several ways to say the date. The easiest way is to use this form:

C’est + le + number + month

For example, it’s July 14: C’est le quatorze juillet.

This construction holds true for all of the days of the month except the first. To say the first of the month you must use the word “premier“ which literally means first (as in first, second, third, etc).

So, to say, “It’s January 1”, say: “c’est le premier janvier“.

There are two more ways to say the date which you should learn:

Nous sommes + le + number + month
On est + le + number + month

So, “Nous sommes le 5 avril” literally means, “We are April 5” and “On est le 15 november“ means “One is November 15”.

Practice saying some dates in French:

le 4 avril April 4	le premier juillet July 1
le 23 mai May 23	le 28 mars march 28
le 25 juin June 25	le 2 août August 2
le premier november November 1	le 15 octobre October 15
le 10 octobre October 10	le 6 september September 6
le 17 octobre October 17	le 25 août August 25
le 22 février February 22	le 17 janvier January 17
le 13 avril April 13	le 6 février February 6