Understanding the Italian Date Format
In Italian, dates are typically written in the day-month-year format. Unlike in English, where the month often comes first, in Italian, the day precedes the month.
Oggi è il 5 luglio 2024.
Today is July 5th 2024.
I gave the Italian date format for granted for long time when teaching Italian, until one day a student asked me “why do English and Italian say the date differently?”. I couldn’t answer this question, because to be honest I do not know!
But expressing dates is a fundamental aspect of language that helps you navigate everyday conversations. So here I am with a breakdown of how to say the date in Italian.
How to say the Date in Italian
Use of the Definite Article
In Italian, expressing a specific day requires the definite article il before the date. The masculine singular article is used because it stands for il giorno (the day). For example, il cinque marzo signifies il giorno cinque marzo, and translates to March 5th.
When writing dates numerically, the format remains day/month/year. For instance, 10/02/2023 corresponds to il dieci febbraio 2023.
Of course, for dates starting with vowels, il becomes l. For example, l’otto ottobre e l’undici dicembre (October 8th and December 11th).
Special Case for the First
Unlike English, where the first three numbers of a month have a unique form, in Italian only the first day of a month is an ordinal number, and all the others are simple cardinal numbers.
Therefore, you have to say il primo, meaning “the first”, as in il primo gennaio, January first. As you can see, you still have to use the definite article.
Days of the Week
If you want to further specify a day by adding the name of the day of the week, you should put it before everything else. As in giovedì, 7 agosto 2021.
Forgot the name of the months in Italian? No worries, I got you!
Il mio compleanno è il quindici agosto.
My birthday is on August 15th.
Also, you might have noticed that, unlike English, months in Italian are not capitalized when written.
Years
Years are fairly straightforward. Whenever I teach numbers to my students I say that Italian numbers are very compositional. By this I mean that you simply have to spell every single cipher the number is composed of.
For instance, 1967 is millenovecentosessantasette. Literally composed of:
- 1000 = mille
- 900 = novecento
- 60 = sessanta
- 7 = sette
Try to say these numbers, and let me know how it went: 1932, 2054, 1999.
Italian Holidays
To practice a bit and give you more insights into the Italian culture, here are the ten most important Italian holidays:
- Capodanno (New Year’s Day): primo gennaio
- Epifania (Epiphany): sei gennaio
- Festa della Liberazione (Liberation Day): venticinque aprile
- Festa dei Lavoratori (Labor Day): primo maggio
- Festa della Repubblica (Republic Day): due giugno
- Ferragosto (Assumption of Mary): quindici agosto
- Ognissanti (All Saints’ Day): primo novembre
- Immacolata Concezione (Immaculate Conception): otto dicembre
- Natale (Christmas Day): venticinque dicembre
- Santo Stefano (Saint Stephen’s Day): ventisei dicembre
Practice Makes Perfect
Learning how to express dates in Italian is a small but significant step towards fluency. Practice by writing and saying dates daily. It’s an excellent way to build your confidence in using the language in real-world situations.
Remember, it’s the little things like mastering dates that make a big difference in learning a new language!
