Dates & Calendar
Dates & Calendar
German dates use ordinal numbers with a period instead of "-th", and the day-month-year order matches British English rather than the American month-day-year order.
Grammar Comparison
Grammar Comparison
Ordinal numbers with a period, not a suffix
der 3. Mai (der dritte Mai) — "the 3rd of May"
May 3rd
English marks ordinals with letter suffixes (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th). German just adds a period after the digit (3. Mai) and pronounces it as the full ordinal word (dritte). Ordinals 1st–19th end in -te (der vierte, the fourth), and 20th onward end in -ste (der zwanzigste, the twentieth), with a few irregulars to memorize (erste 1st, dritte 3rd, siebte 7th, achte 8th).
Date order: day, then month — like British English, not American
der 3. Mai 2024 / am 3.5.2024
May 3rd, 2024 / 3.5.2024 (British-style)
American English writes dates month-first (5/3/2024 = May 3rd), which is the opposite of German's day-first convention (3.5.2024 = the 3rd of May). This is a genuine trap for American readers: 3.5.2024 in German is NOT March 5th. British English date order ("3 May 2024") actually matches the German logic much more closely, so lean on that if it's familiar to you.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
| German | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| der Montag | dair MOHN-tahk | Monday |
| der Dienstag | dair DEENS-tahk | Tuesday |
| der Mittwoch | dair MIT-vokh | Wednesday |
| der Donnerstag | dair DON-ners-tahk | Thursday |
| der Freitag | dair FRY-tahk | Friday |
| der Samstag | dair ZAHMS-tahk | Saturday |
| der Sonntag | dair ZON-tahk | Sunday |
| der Monat | dair MOH-naht | the month |
| das Jahr | dahs yahr | the year |
| Welches Datum ist heute? | VEL-khes DAH-toom ist HOY-teh | What's today's date? |
| Heute ist der 3. Mai. | HOY-teh ist dair DRIT-teh my | Today is May 3rd. |