There are seven important words in the German language, can you guess which words these are? The days of the week!
With this handy guide, you’ll not only learn the days of the week in German, but how to practice them, a few must-know grammatical points and interesting cultural info.
Ready to learn? All right: Heute (today), let’s learn theWochentage (days of the week).
In German, Mond means “moon,” so Montag literally means “moon-day.”
As with most languages, the German days tend to correspond with celestial bodies or mythological beings. As you could probably guess by the look and sound of it, Montag is Monday and the first day of the workweek.
The name for German’s Tuesday comes from an old Germanic god, Tyr. Tyr was actually the Germanic name for Mars, the Roman god of war.
It’s interesting to note that while the name was different, the patron god of Tuesday is the same being as many other languages and cultures such as Italian, French and Spanish.
Samstag originates from a Greek word that means “sabbath.” Sonnabend means “sun-evening” and is in reference to the fact that Saturday comes before Sunday.
While Samstag is the universal name for Saturday in German, you may also hear it be referred to as Sonnabend in northern and western Germany.
Just as the English word for Sunday includes “sun,” so does the German word. Sonne is “sun” in German, so Sonntag is a variation of this.
Sunday in Germany is regarded very highly, as the culture cherishes reserving this day for spending time with family.
Almost all stores are closed on Sundays and most German families will spend the day in cafes, taking a stroll and decidedly not shopping or working.
German Grammar with the Days of the Week
There are a few grammatical rules you need to know to use the German days of the week correctly.
Gender
All the days of the week are masculine, which means they take the masculine articles der (the) and ein (a) in the nominative case. But as you’ll see below, the article is rarely ever needed for the weekdays, just like in English.
A little trick to remember this is that the German word der Tag (the day) is masculine. German compound words take the gender of the word at the end. Mittwoch (Wednesday) is an exception, but you can just memorize that it’s masculine, too.
Prepositions
Use am (on) to denote that something is happening on a particular day.
Am Samstag habe ich mich mit meinen Freunden getroffen. (On Saturday, I met up with my friends.)
Am Donnerstag bin ich einkaufen gegangen. (On Thursday, I went shopping.)
Use von … bis … to say “from … to …”.
Von Montag bis Donnerstag bin ich in Kopenhagen. (From Monday to Thursday, I am in Copenhagen.)
Ich arbeite von Montag bis Freitag. (I work from Monday to Friday.)
Capitalization
The days of the week are always capitalized because they are nouns. But if you make them into adverbs, they lose that capital letter.
Why would you want them to be adverbs? So you can easily say you regularly do something on a certain weekday with a single word!
Take a weekday, make the first letter lowercase and add -s: montags, dienstags, mittwochs…
Ich gehe sonntags in die Kirche. (I go to church on Sundays.)
Samstags esse ich Pfannkuchen. (I eat pancakes on Saturdays.)
Mittwochs tragen wir pink. (On Wednesdays, we wear pink.)
German Phrases Related to the Days of the Week
Now that you have the days of the week in German and some grammar, have a look at some other words and phrases you might need to talk about them.
Here are some more creative methods of learning and remembering the days of the week in German.
Call on your English knowledge. German and English are very similar languages since they come from the same West Germanic branch of the linguistic family tree. Consequently, Montag, Freitag, Samstag, Sonntag sound remarkably like their English equivalents.
Buy a German calendar. You may not look at it a lot, but by having it visible you’ll subconsciously be solidifying the German days in your mind.
Put your Gmail and Facebook in German. Once you see that someone sent you a message on Donnerstag (Thursday), for example, the word will stick in your head much faster than if you simply looked at it on a flashcard.
Put your phone in German. If you put your phone in German, that means you’ll see the day of the week auf Deutsch (in German) every single time you check your phone.
Write practice sentences. Learn to spell the days of the week and then create sentences with them. One thing you can do is practice saying that something typically happens on a day of the week. For example, Ich gehe montags ins Fitnessstudio (I go to the gym on Mondays).
Learn with German songs and videos. By finding a catchy tune, you can learn these words quickly. Check this one out to help you remember the days of the week.
Lastly, a super effective way is to use authentic content so you’ll see how the days of the week are used in context through a language program such as FluentU.
FluentU takes authentic videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.
You can try FluentU for free for 2 weeks. Check out the website or download the iOS app or Android app.
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