Days of the Week in French
Lundi, mardi, mercredi, jeudi, vendredi, samedi, dimanche. The count is the easy part — seven, same as everywhere. The interesting part is what the words are made of: five are named after Roman planet-gods, and the last two are where French quietly parts ways with English.
Five days, five planet-gods
The Romans named the days after the seven moving lights in the sky — the Sun, the Moon and the five visible planets, each tied to a god. French inherited that scheme almost untouched through Latin. Lundi is the Moon's day (lunae dies), mardi is Mars, mercredi is Mercury, jeudi is Jupiter (Jovis dies), and vendredi is Venus. Six of the seven still end in -di, straight from Latin dies, "day"; only dimanchemoved it to the front.
Where French and English split
English ran the same five planet-gods — but swapped in the local equivalents. The Romans matched their gods to Germanic ones (a habit scholars call interpretatio germanica), so Mars became Tiw (Tuesday), Mercury became Woden (Wednesday), Jupiter became Thor (Thursday) and Venus became Frigg (Friday). Same roles, different pantheon.
Then the weekend breaks the symmetry. French Christianised both days: samedicomes from the Sabbath (Late Latin sambati dies, ultimately Hebrew shabbat), and dimanche from dies Dominica, "the Lord's day". English did the opposite and kept the pagan names — Saturn's day and the Sun's day. So the two languages agree on five days and disagree on exactly the two French chose to make holy.
Using them in a sentence
Three rules cover almost everything. First, no capital letters — "je travaille lundi", not "Lundi". Second, no word for "on": French says "je travaille mardi" for "I work on Tuesday". Third, the little word le turns a single day into a habit — lundi is this Monday, le lundi is "on Mondays", every week. All seven days are masculine, which is why the recurring form always takes le.
One more quirk worth knowing: the French week starts on Monday, following the ISO-8601 standard used across most of Europe — not Sunday, as calendars often default to in the US. The week itself is still seven days either way; only the starting point moves.
Quick quiz — match the day
Seven rapid questions. Pick the French word for each English day.
Which French word is Tuesday?
Frequently asked questions
Are days of the week capitalised in French?
No. French only capitalises them at the start of a sentence. "Je travaille lundi" — not "Lundi".
What is the difference between "lundi" and "le lundi"?
Bare "lundi" means this coming (or this specific) Monday. Add the article — "le lundi" — and it means "on Mondays", every week. French uses no word for "on".
What is the first day of the week in France?
Monday. France follows the ISO-8601 standard, where the week runs Monday to Sunday — unlike the US, which usually starts on Sunday.
Are the French days masculine or feminine?
All seven are masculine, which is why the recurring form takes "le", as in "le samedi".
How do you say "weekend" in French?
Le week-end — borrowed straight from English, hyphen and all.
- The French Experiment — French days of the week with native-audio pronunciation reference.
- CNRTL (Centre National de Ressources Textuelles et Lexicales) — etymologies of samedi (< sambati dies) and dimanche (< dies Dominica).
- Planetary-day naming and interpretatio germanica — the Roman-to-Germanic god mapping behind the English weekday names.
- ISO-8601 — the international standard that sets Monday as the first day of the week, as used in France.
Seven days, five of them still carrying the names of Roman gods — and two that mark the moment French chose the calendar of the church over the calendar of the sky.