French days, months, and seasons are essential for talking about schedules, birthdays, holidays, school terms, and travel plans. Learning them as a calendar system helps you connect vocabulary to real dates instead of memorizing isolated words. In French, these words are usually written in lowercase, which is different from English.
Pronunciation also matters because several words contain sounds that do not match their spelling exactly.
Key Facts
- Days of the week: lundi, mardi, mercredi, jeudi, vendredi, samedi, dimanche.
- Months: janvier, février, mars, avril, mai, juin, juillet, août, septembre, octobre, novembre, décembre.
- Seasons: le printemps, l’été, l’automne, l’hiver.
- To give the date: C’est le + number + month, as in C’est le 14 juillet.
- For the first day of a month, use 1er: C’est le 1er avril.
- To say in a month or season: en janvier, en été, en automne, but au printemps.
Vocabulary
- La date
- La date means the date, such as le 3 mai or le 21 décembre.
- La semaine
- La semaine means the week, a period of seven days from lundi to dimanche.
- Le mois
- Le mois means the month, such as janvier, avril, or octobre.
- La saison
- La saison means the season, such as printemps, été, automne, or hiver.
- Aujourd’hui
- Aujourd’hui means today and is often used to introduce the current day or date.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Capitalizing days and months, which is wrong because French usually writes them in lowercase unless they begin a sentence.
- Saying en printemps, which is wrong because French uses au printemps for in spring.
- Forgetting le in dates, which is wrong because standard French says C’est le 10 juin, not C’est 10 juin.
- Using un for the first day of the month, which is wrong because dates use le 1er, pronounced le premier.
Practice Questions
- 1 Write the French date for July 14 using the pattern C’est le + number + month.
- 2 A school break starts on Monday, February 5 and ends on Friday, February 9. Write both days and dates in French.
- 3 Explain why le printemps uses au printemps, while juillet uses en juillet, and give one original French sentence using each.