{"id":9391,"date":"2023-09-05T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-05T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/?p=9391"},"modified":"2023-09-05T09:41:12","modified_gmt":"2023-09-05T08:41:12","slug":"days-of-the-week-months-and-seasons-in-french","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/days-of-the-week-months-and-seasons-in-french\/","title":{"rendered":"Days of the Week, Months, and Seasons in French"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Eiffel<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Do you know how to say the days of the week in French? How about the months or words like ‘day after tomorrow’? Learn all of these in our latest post and see how much more confident you feel talking about days, months, and seasons when you’re done. You’ll also find out how some of the days of the week are linked to Roman gods and how the summer season is associated with the word ‘fire’.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Months in French<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
English<\/th>French<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
January<\/td>janvier<\/td><\/tr>
February<\/td>f\u00e9vrier<\/td><\/tr>
March<\/td>mars<\/td><\/tr>
April<\/td>avril<\/td><\/tr>
May<\/td>mai<\/td><\/tr>
June<\/td>juin<\/td><\/tr>
July<\/td>juillet<\/td><\/tr>
August<\/td>ao\u00fbt<\/td><\/tr>
September<\/td>septembre<\/td><\/tr>
October<\/td>octobre<\/td><\/tr>
November<\/td>novembre<\/td><\/tr>
December<\/td>d\u00e9cembre<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

All of the months in French look pretty similar to those in English \u2013 and for good reason! Like the months of the year in English, their French counterparts are derived from Latin, though they’ve travelled into the modern language via Old French.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Days of the Week in French<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
English<\/th>French<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
Monday<\/td>lundi<\/td><\/tr>
Tuesday<\/td>mardi<\/td><\/tr>
Wednesday<\/td>mercredi<\/td><\/tr>
Thursday<\/td>jeudi<\/td><\/tr>
Friday<\/td>vendredi<\/td><\/tr>
Saturday<\/td>samedi<\/td><\/tr>
Sunday<\/td>dimanche<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Here is where we start to see a larger difference between the French and English words. When it comes to days of the week, English has been heavily influenced by its Germanic roots, whereas French has inherited words from Latin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The French word for ‘Monday’ is named after the moon, while the days ‘Tuesday’ to ‘Friday’ in fact refer back to various Roman gods (and the planets named after them, too):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

French<\/th>Old French<\/th>Latin<\/th>Notes<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
lundi<\/td>lundi<\/td>L\u016bnae di\u0113s<\/td>Day of the moon<\/td><\/tr>
mardi<\/td><\/td>M\u0101rtis di\u0113s<\/td>variant of di\u0113s M\u0101rtis<\/em> – Day of Mars<\/td><\/tr>
mercredi<\/td>mercredi<\/td>Mercuri\u012b di\u0113s<\/td>variant of di\u0113s Mercuri\u012b<\/em> \u2013 Day of Mercury<\/td><\/tr>
jeudi<\/td>jeudi, jusdi<\/td>Jovis di\u0113s \/ Iovis di\u0113s<\/td>variant of di\u0113s Iovis<\/em> \u2013 Day of Jupiter<\/td><\/tr>
vendredi<\/td>vendredi<\/td>Veneris di\u0113s<\/td>variant of di\u0113s Veneris<\/em> \u2013 Day of Venus<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The words for Saturday and Sunday (samedi<\/em> and dimanche<\/em>) have slightly different roots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Samedi<\/em>\u00a0is inherited from the Old French\u00a0samedi<\/em>. This came from the Vulgar Latin\u00a0sambatum<\/em>\u00a0or\u00a0*sambat\u012b di\u0113s<\/em>, which in turn descended from the Latin\u00a0Sabbat\u012b di\u0113s.<\/em>\u00a0This is a variant of\u00a0di\u0113s Sabbat\u012b<\/em>, which means ‘day of the Sabbath’. Originally,\u00a0‘Sabbath’ comes from Hebrew<\/a>\u00a0and means a weekly day of rest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dimanche<\/em>\u00a0also comes from Latin via Old French (diemenche<\/em>), but the origins seem to appear in Late Latin and the phrase\u00a0di\u0113s Dominicus<\/em>, which means ‘day of the Lord’. Similar words in other Romance languages include the Catalan\u00a0diumenge<\/em>, Occitan\u00a0dimenge<\/em>, or even the\u00a0Romanian\u00a0duminic\u0103<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seasons in French<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
English<\/th>French<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
spring<\/td>le printemps<\/td><\/tr>
summer<\/td>l’\u00e9t\u00e9<\/td><\/tr>
autumn<\/td>l’automne<\/td><\/tr>
winter<\/td>l’hiver<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Of course, all the French words for seasons are also originally derived from Latin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The word for ‘spring’, printemps<\/em>, comes from the Old French printans<\/em>, which derived from the phrase prime tans<\/em>, meaning ‘first time’ or ‘first season’. The Latin origins are the phrase pr\u012bmum tempus.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Summer, \u00e9t\u00e9,<\/em> comes from the Old French est\u00e9<\/em>, which was derived from the Latin aest\u0101tem<\/em>. Ultimately, this likely came from a Proto-Indo-European word, *h\u2082eyd\u02b0-<\/em>, which means ‘burn’ or ‘fire’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moving onto autumn, and the word automne<\/em> looks very similar to the English word here. The French is inherited from the Old French word automne,<\/em> which was borrowed from the Latin word autumnus<\/em>, also meaning ‘autumn’. As well as the word automne,<\/em> the French also developed another word for the third season. A popular rural term for autumn in France has historically been apr\u00e8s ao\u00fbt<\/em>, which means ‘after August’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And finally, winter. The French word for ‘winter’, hiver<\/em>, was inherited from the Middle French hyver<\/em>, which came from the Old French hyvier, yver<\/em> or iver<\/em>. The borrowing of the word for ‘winter-time’ \u2013 h\u012bbernum<\/em> \u2013 from Latin was first recorded in 1282 and is also where other words for winter like inverno<\/em> in Italian and invierno<\/em> in Spanish come from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other French time phrases<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Here are some more French time words that might be useful for you as you learn some more of the language!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

English<\/th>French<\/th>Notes<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
day<\/td>le jour<\/td>Originally borrowed from Latin diurnum<\/em> (‘day’), with a sound change of [i] to [j], followed by a merger of [dj] into [j].<\/td><\/tr>
night<\/td>le nuit<\/td><\/td><\/tr>
week<\/td>la semaine<\/td><\/td><\/tr>
month<\/td>le mois<\/td><\/td><\/tr>
year<\/td>l’ann\u00e9e<\/td><\/td><\/tr>
day before yesterday<\/td>avant-hier<\/td>From avant<\/em> (‘before’) and hier<\/em> (‘yesterday’).<\/td><\/tr>
yesterday<\/td>hier<\/td><\/td><\/tr>
today<\/td>aujourd’hui<\/td>Formed of au<\/em> + jour<\/em> + hui<\/em> \u2013 literally, ‘on the day of this day’.<\/td><\/tr>
tomorrow<\/td>demain<\/td><\/td><\/tr>
day after tomorrow<\/td>apr\u00e8s-demain<\/td>From apr\u00e8s<\/em> (‘after’) and demain<\/em> (‘tomorrow’).<\/td><\/tr>
morning<\/td>le matin<\/td><\/td><\/tr>
afternoon<\/td>l’apr\u00e8s-midi<\/td>From apr\u00e8s<\/em> (‘after’) and midi<\/em> (‘noon, midday’).<\/td><\/tr>
evening<\/td>le soir<\/td><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Let us know what you think of this post! We hope you enjoyed learning about the days of the week, months, and seasons in French.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the French words and phrases in this post can be found in the Calendar topic on our app.\u00a0Give French a try on uTalk<\/a>\u00a0and you’ll learn around 2,500 useful words and phrases for any occasion. Plus,\u00a0get 40% off your next subscription by visiting this link.<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Happy language learning!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do you know how to say the days of the week in French? How about the months or words like ‘day after tomorrow’? Learn all of these in our latest post and see how much more confident you feel talking about days, months, and seasons when you’re done. You’ll also find out how some of … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9392,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[49],"tags":[333,285],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9391"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9391"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9393,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9391\/revisions\/9393"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}