Dates

The first thing to know about saying the date in Spanish is learning the names of the days of the week and the months. Notice that the names are not capitalized like they are in English. Make sure you know your numbers so that you can say the year.

el lunes → Monday
el martes → Tuesday
el miércoles → Wednesday
el jueves → Thursday
el viernes → Friday
el sábado → Saturday
el domingo →  Sunday

enero → January
febrero → February
marzo → March
abril → April
mayo → May
junio → June
julio → July
agosto → August
septiembre → September
octubre → October
noviembre → November
diciembre → December

A few key points

You don’t write out the number, just use the digit.

The basic pattern for saying the date is day-month-year.

Ejemplo: 1 de abril / 1° de abril de 2020      April 1, 2020

Hoy es + day of the week + number + de + month + de + year. (You can leave out the day of the week if you want.)

Hoy es martes dieciocho de abril de dos mil quince. (18/4/2015) → It is Tuesday, April 18, 2015 (4/18/2015)

Hoy es 25 de octubre de 1998. (25/10/1998) → It is October 25, 1998. (10/25/1998)

Notice that you say the full number for the year.
Mil novecientos ochenta y tres. → One thousand nine hundred eighty three (1998).

When writing the number for the date, in Spanish the day is the first number, not the month.
10/1/2005 (Diez de enero de dos mil cinco) → 1/10/2005 (January 10, 2005 / 10th of January, 2005)

Don’t use ordinals (second, third, fourth, etc.) except for the first.
Primero (dos, tres…) de mayo → First (two, three,…) of May.

When mentioning the day/date on which something happens, use the word el instead of en.
Voy a ir a la tienda el martes. → I am going to the store on Tuesday.
Voy de vacaciones el 1 de mayo. → I am going on vacation on May 1st.

A few questions you may hear

¿Cuál es la fecha de hoy? → What is the date today?
¿A cuántos estamos hoy? → What is the date today?
¿Qué día es hoy? → What day is it today?
¿Cuál es tu cumpleaños? → What is your birthday?
¿Cuál es tu fecha de nacimiento? → What is your date of birth?

 

Practice

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