Days of the Week in Chinese: 星期一 Is Monday, and Sunday Has No Number

English gives the week seven separate names and none of them tell you where you are in it. Chinese does the opposite. Six of the seven days are a word for "week" with a digit stuck on the end, in order, and the seventh is the only one you have to learn as a word.

That makes the week one of the smallest pieces of vocabulary in the language, and one of the first places a learner who can count still misses what was said. The numbers go past too fast to add up, and the one day that carries no number is the one people say most.

Countfu is listening practice for Chinese numbers: hear a number in Mandarin, type the digits. Take the free listening test.

The days of the week in Chinese are 星期 plus a number

星期 (xīng qī) is the word for week. Put a digit after it and you have named a day:

Three syllables, and the last one is the whole message. 星期二 is Tuesday, 星期三 is Wednesday, and it runs on in order to 星期六 for Saturday. There is no extra word for "day" and no change to 星期 along the way.

The tone of that 一: it is yī, first tone, the plain dictionary form. 一 usually shifts tone depending on what follows it, but here nothing follows it, so it stays put. 星期一 is one of the standard examples of 一 keeping its first tone, and it is worth hearing once so the shifted versions elsewhere do not sound like a different word.

星期一 is Monday, and the count starts there

Day one is Monday. If your calendar at home starts the week on Sunday, this will quietly put every day one place out for a while, and it is worth fixing before you rely on it to catch a train.

Here is the whole system in one table, with both prefixes:

Six rows of pure counting and one row of words. That last row is the part of the week you have to hold separately, and it is covered further down.

One small piece of good luck lives in this table. The week stops at 6, so 十 (shí, ten) never appears in a weekday. The 4 and 10 mix-up that costs learners so much everywhere else cannot happen here: a syllable in that area can only be 四.

Tuesday is 星期二, never 星期两

Chinese has two words for the digit 2, and the week takes only one of them:

两 (liǎng) is the 2 that goes in front of a measure word, as in 两点 for 2 o'clock. Nothing is being measured in a weekday, the number is only naming a position, so the week uses 二 every time. The full split between 两 and 二 is its own guide, and the week sits cleanly on the 二 side of it.

周 is the same system, one syllable shorter

周 (zhōu) also means week, and it takes exactly the same numbers:

There is no difference in meaning. 星期 is the everyday spoken default and 周 turns up more in writing, timetables, office talk and the news, but either can be said anywhere.

For a listener the difference is speed. 星期三 gives you two syllables of warning that a number is coming. 周三 gives you one, and the number lands before you have finished recognising the word in front of it. If weekdays feel fine on paper and slip past you in speech, the 周 forms are usually where it happens.

Sunday is the one day that is not a number

Sunday breaks the pattern completely. Instead of a 7 it takes a word meaning "day", either 日 (rì) or 天 (tiān):

Both prefixes take both day words, so Sunday alone has four surfaces: 星期日, 星期天, 周日 and 周天. All four are the same day. 天 leans spoken and 日 leans written or formal, which is why a schedule prints 周日 and a friend says 星期天.

星期七 does not exist. That matters more than it sounds, because it means the one day you hear most often carries no digit for your ear to catch. Everything else in the week can be handled by counting. Sunday has to be known.

A third word you will meet: 礼拜 (lǐ bài) is another everyday word for week, common in the south and in casual speech, and it works the same way: 礼拜一 is Monday and 礼拜天 is Sunday. Learn to recognise it, then keep saying 星期 or 周 yourself.

Where these actually turn up

Weekdays rarely arrive on their own. They come attached to a plan, which is where the speed problem starts:

• 下星期三 (xià xīng qī sān) is next Wednesday. 上 is last and 这 is this.
• 星期五晚上 (xīng qī wǔ wǎn shang) is Friday evening.
• 星期几 (xīng qī jǐ) is the question: which day is it.

In every one of those the number sits in the middle of a longer phrase, with words running into it on both sides. You do not get a clean pause to count in.

How to train it

The rule takes one minute to read and does nothing for you at speaking speed. 周三 is over in about half a second, and by the time you have translated "week three" into Wednesday the sentence has moved on to the time and the place.

What closes that gap is hearing many of them cold and answering at once, so the sound arrives already meaning a day. Try these without looking, answers below:

• 周五 (zhōu wǔ)
• 星期四 (xīng qī sì)
• 周日 (zhōu rì)
• 星期六 (xīng qī liù)

Friday, Thursday, Sunday, Saturday. If any of them cost you a beat of counting, that beat is the thing to remove, and the only way to remove it is repetition with an immediate answer.

Related reading

• How to Say Dates in Chinese: Year, Month, Day, in That Order: the calendar system the week sits inside.
• The 一 Tone Change: Why Yī Becomes Yì and Yí: why the 一 in 星期一 keeps its first tone and most others do not.
• Liang vs Er: When Two Is 两 and When It Is 二 in Chinese: why Tuesday is 二 and 2 o'clock is 两.

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