Saying the date in French

Here are the names of the months in French:



Here are the days of the week in French [note that the week starts with Monday, rather than Sunday, in French calendars]:

lundi [Monday]
mardi [Tuesday]
mercredi [Wednesday]
jeudi [Thursday]
vendredi [Friday]
samedi [Saturday]
dimanche [Sunday]

Notice that names of months and days are not capitalized in French. All days and months are masculine, though articles are rarely used with the names of months.

When saying or writing the date in French, you will typically follow this format:

[day of the week] [date] [month] [year]

Examples:

lundi 7 juillet 2014
samedi 3 septembre 1982

Don't make the mistake of directly translating from English and using the cardinal numbers to say the date (i.e., the third of April). French does not do this - except for the first of the month. Then, it is correct to say premier.

Examples:

jeudi premier janvier 2000
Because this date structure puts the date before the month, abbreviated dates follow this format: DD/MM/YYYY. So, November 10, 2010 (10 novembre 2010) would be written 10/11/2010. This can be confusing if you are mixing between speakers of American English and French, so it is often best to write it out, or to write an abbreviation for the month to be clear (i.e. 10/nov/2010).

Years are spoken as normal numbers in French. The English convention of saying the first two digits followed by the last two digits is not followed. So, 2014 is deux mille quatorze and 1999 is mille neuf cent quatre-vingt-dix-neuf.