Grade 1

Days of the Week

Let's get started with another set of very easy to learn words shall we? Let's learn the days of the week! Sunday through Saturday!

Just like numbers, the days of the week are frequently used. Learning these words to speak Japanese in the early stage of your study will be very useful.

English Romaji Kana Kanji
Monday getsuyoubi げつようび 月曜日
Tuesday kayoubi かようび 火曜日
Wednesday suiyoubi すいようび 水曜日
Thursday mokuyoubi もくようび 木曜日
Friday kin'youbi きんようび 金曜日
Saturday doyoubi どようび 土曜日
Sunday nichiyoubi にちようび 日曜日
Day hi ひ 日
Today kyou きょう 今日
Tomorrow ashita あした 明日
Yesterday kinou きのう 昨日
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All you need to do is say "It is ____." Fill in the blank with what day it is or whatever works best for you. This works out as just "____" in Japanese. (nichiyoubi) "It is Sunday". There is no "it is", in Japanese.

To mark the topic of a sentence, you can use the particle は (wa) but don't worry too much about what the "wa" part is for now, we'll cover that in another lesson soon. Now, you should be able to tell me what day it is! Here are some basic examples:

Today is Monday
きょうはげつようび
kyou wa getsuyoubi
Tomorrow is Tuesday
あしたはかようび
ashita wa kayoubi

Additional Notes

Here is a list of other pages as a reference of what is being covered now:

Month Counter 月 As mentioned before in the number lesson about counters, months are a type of numeric counter. They are listed out by number, the first month is January, the second month is February and so on. Tap to redirect

Remember, Japanese Pronunciation is very different to English. Try to check other sites such as YouTube to hear these words being spoken by real life Japanese people. You may also use an online dictionary such as japandict.com that has audio and an image for pitch accent.

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Additional Information

Japanese Days of the Week are quite similar to English that they use the same endings for each day. English days end in "day" but Japanese days end with 曜日 "youbi" (Day of the Week).

The first parts of the days are named after the elements: Sun 日, Moon 月, Fire 火, Water 水, Tree 木, Gold 金 and Earth 土. In both English and Japanese, Sunday and Monday are the same; Sunday is named after the Sun, 日 (sun). Monday is the Day of the Moon, 月 (moon). In English, the Days of the Week are named after celestial bodies and Germanic Gods: Sun, Moon, Týr, Wōden, Thor, Frigg and Saturn.