An awesome guide to the days of the week in Italian, for beginners

If you’ve recently started learning this beautiful language, whether for pleasure, or to enhance your professional profile, you will soon realize that knowing the names of the days of the week in Italian is a must for clear and effective communication.

Once you know them, you’ll be able to plan a colazione with an Italian friend or schedule a business meeting with the team at work. Not to mention the fact that, on your next trip to Italy, you will be able to arrange your stay at an Airbnb and even understand on which days of the week museums are closed!

In this article, you will not only find out how to say the days of the week in Italian, but you’ll also learn how to pronounce them and use them correctly in context.

To make it even more interesting, we’ve also picked some cool Italian songs to help you remember i giorni della settimana (the days of the week), and we’re not talking about nursery school rhymes, but actual, well-known Italian classics!

Read on if you want to listen to them! With the tables provided, the pronunciation transcription (both in IPA and for English speakers), and the songs, you’ll soon be able to use the days of the week in Italian like a native-fluent speaker!

We’ve also added some interesting facts about the names of the weekdays in Italian and their origin. Let’s go!

Days of the week in Italian with pronunciation

First, let’s see a table with the days of the week in English and Italian, so that you can get familiar with them.

In the two columns on the right, you will also find their IPA pronunciation (for language students, learning the International Phonetic Alphabet is never a waste of time) and the pronunciation for native English speakers, which recreates the correct Italian pronunciation by using English sounds (basically, if you do not know IPA, we got you covered anyway!).

Remember, Italian is a phonetic language, so we tend to pronounce all letters just as they are written. This means that, once you know the few simple rules you need, you’ll be able to pronounce any word you read (yes, even those you’ve never seen or heard before!).

As you can see in the table above, days from lunedì (Monday) to venerdì (Friday) have an accent on the final letter [ -ì ]. This means the stress falls there.

On the other hand, in sabato the stress falls on the first syllable [ sa- ] and in domenica on the second [ -me- ]. (In the English pronunciation column, the stressed syllables are in italics.)

TIP: Make sure you always use the grave accent [ ` ] on the [ -ì] when you write the days of the week: in Italian, [ í ] doesn’t exist!

FAQs for learning the days of the week in Italian

I. Are days of the week masculine or feminine in Italian?

Days from lunedì (Monday) to sabato (Saturday) are masculine, so they are used with masculine articles and adjectives. Be careful, though, domenica (Sunday) is feminine and needs feminine articles and adjectives!

• Il sabato è il mio giorno preferito.
  Saturday is my favourite day.
• La domenica sembra sempre troppo corta.
  Sunday always seems too short.

II. Do days of the week get capitalized in Italian?

No, unlike in English, days of the week in Italian are not capitalized (unless of course, they are at the beginning of the sentence).

III. How do you abbreviate days of the week in Italian?

Here’s how to abbreviate days of the week in Italian, with either three letters or just one.

IV. Do you use articles with the days of the week?

Generally, you don’t need to use an article with the days of the week, unless you talk about a repetitive action. Have a look at the difference in meaning between the two examples below:

• Lunedì vado in montagna.
  On Sunday I am going to the mountains.
• Il lunedì vado in montagna.
  On Mondays I go to the mountains.

In the first example, we are saying “I will go to the mountains THIS Monday.” In the second sentence, however, the article il denotes a repetitive action, a habit: “Usually on Mondays, I go to the mountains.”

You can also use the article if you are describing the day of the week:

• Il sabato è il mio giorno preferito.
  Saturday is my favourite day.
• Odio il lunedì!
  I hate Mondays!

Other useful expressions related to time in Italian

Here are other expressions that you will need to talk about the days of the week in Italian, and about time in general. You will find these extremely useful when arranging a meeting or organizing a trip!

Il giorno - the day

Che giorno della settimana è oggi?
What day of the week is it today?

La settimana - the week

Settimana scorsa sono andata a Milano, non c’ero mai stata.
Last week I went to Milan, I had never been there.

Il fine settimana - the weekend

Cosa fai questo fine settimana***?
What are you doing this weekend?

***Actually, you can also use the English word ‘weekend’ in Italian. (Just say it with your best Italian accent!)
Cosa fai questo weekend?

Oggi - today

Oggi è sabato, ma io lavoro. Riposo solo la domenica.
It’s Saturday today, but I am working. I rest only on Sundays.

Domani - tomorrow

Domani andrà meglio, vedrai.
Tomorrow will be better, you’ll see.

Dopodomani - the day after tomorrow

Per te è meglio se facciamo la riunione domani o dopodomani?
Is it better to do the meeting tomorrow or the day after tomorrow for you?

Ieri - yesterday

Ieri non sono andata in ufficio perché c’era uno sciopero dei mezzi di trasporto.
I did not go to the office yesterday because there was a transport strike.

Interesting facts about days of the week in Italian

1. Have you noticed…

In English, the seven days end in ‘-day’... There is a similar rule in Italian: days from lunedì (Monday) to venerdì (Friday) end in -dì, which comes from dì, an old synonym of giorno (day).

Nowadays, dì is no longer used in speaking, but you might find it in poetry and literary texts, and sometimes in documents in the ‘date’ section.

2. The days in Italian are dedicated to the planets of the solar system

In fact, lunedì is the day of the moon (luna in Italian), martedì is the day of Mars (Marte), mercoledì is the day of Mercury (Mercurio), giovedì is dedicated to Jupiter (Giove) and venerdì to Venus (Venere).

Sabato, however, which was once the day of Saturn (Saturno) in Latin, in modern Italian takes its name from the tradition of the Shabbat, the Jewish “day of rest”.

Just to complete the settimana (week), the name domenica (Sunday) is “the day of the Lord, as it comes from the Latin dominus (lord).

Funnily, the original ‘pagan’ meaning remained in the English ‘Saturday’ and ‘Sunday’, which were, respectively, the day of Saturn and of the Sun.