The date in French: how to say it, write it and practise it

The pattern

The French date is short: the article le, the number, the month, then the year. There is no “of” and no word for “on”.

Nous sommes le lundi 5 octobre 2026.It’s Monday 5 October 2026.

Mon anniversaire, c’est le 12 mars.My birthday is on 12 March.

L’examen a lieu le 3 juin.The exam is on 3 June.

1. Ordinary numbers. French says “the five May”: le cinq mai. Pupils who follow spoken English (“the fifth of May”) produce “le cinquième mai”, which is wrong.
2. The 1st is the exception. Le 1er mai is read le premier mai. It is written 1er, with “er” raised if possible; “1ier” and “1ème” are wrong.
3. The day of the week goes between le and the number. le mercredi 30 septembre. The article belongs to the date as a whole.
4. No elision before huit and onze. le huit mai, le onze novembre, never “l’onze”. Likewise du onze au quinze.
5. No capitals. le lundi 5 octobre. The one exception is a date used as the name of a holiday: le 14 Juillet, France’s national day, is often written with a capital.

Pupils who also learn Spanish should note the contrast: Spanish says el 5 de mayo, French says le 5 mai. Adding “de” in French is a typical mix-up.

Asking the date

Quelle est la date aujourd’hui ?What’s the date today?

Quel jour sommes-nous ?What day is it today?

Nous sommes le 5 octobre.It’s 5 October.

In everyday speech you will also hear On est le combien aujourd’hui ? and the answers On est le 5 or C’est le 5 octobre. Nous sommes and on est are the natural way to give the date; “il est le 5 octobre” does not exist.

Writing the date

Good news for UK pupils: French writes the day first, as in Britain. 5 October 2026 is 05/10/2026 or 5/10/2026.

At the top of a letter, the place comes first, followed by le: Paris, le 5 octobre 2026.

When space is short, months can be abbreviated: janv., févr., avr., juil., sept., oct., nov., déc. Mars, mai, juin and août are short enough to be written in full.

Saying the year

The year is usually read as one whole number: deux mille vingt-six. For years from 1100 to 1999, two readings are heard: the full number, or a grouping in hundreds that works a little like English.

Pupils will not get away with an English-style “dix-neuf quatre-vingt-dix-huit”: the word cent is always there. In older or formal texts you may also see mil for years (l’an mil, mil neuf cent), an accepted variant spelling.

“In 2026” is en 2026, never “dans 2026”.

Je suis né le 3 mai 2013.I was born on 3 May 2013. (A girl writes née.)

Decades and centuries

Decades are les années 90 or les années quatre-vingt-dix, with no apostrophe and no s after the figures, unlike English “the 1990s”. Centuries are written in Roman numerals with a raised e and read as ordinals: le XXIe siècle is le vingt et unième siècle.

Around the date

• C’est quand, ton anniversaire ?: When is your birthday?
• C’est le 12 mars.: It’s on 12 March.
• du 3 au 7 mai: from 3 to 7 May
• hier, c’était…: yesterday was…
• demain, ce sera…: tomorrow will be…
• en début de mois, en fin de mois: at the beginning, at the end of the month

Key dates give the routine a cultural angle: le 6 janvier (l’Épiphanie and the galette des rois), le 1er mai (Labour Day, when lily of the valley is sold in the streets), le 14 Juillet (national day), le 11 novembre (Armistice Day, a bank holiday in France).

Typical mistakes of English-speaking learners

• Ordinals: “le troisième mai” instead of le 3 (trois) mai.
• “Le un mai”: it is le premier mai.
• Translating “on” or “of”: “sur le 5 mai”, “le 5 de mai”.
• Capital letters on the day and the month.
• “Dans 2026”: it is en 2026.
• “L’onze novembre”: no elision before onze.
• “Il est le 5”: the date takes nous sommes, on est or c’est.

In class: the date routine

The date is the ideal opening ritual: it changes every day, so the sentence is never quite the same, and it recycles numbers, days and months at once.

1. Display today’s date in figures only: 05/10/2026.
2. Ask Quelle est la date aujourd’hui ? and let the class build the sentence aloud.
3. Reveal the full written sentence: Nous sommes le lundi 5 octobre 2026. Pupils check the article, the lower case and the year.
4. Give the role of questioner to a different pupil each day.
5. On the 1st of the month, make a point of le premier; on the 8th and the 11th, of the missing elision.

This is exactly what a daily routine does: a minute a day, until the sentence comes out without thinking.

Many UK departments ask pupils to write the date in the target language at the top of their work. It is a good habit, provided the written model is correct: lundi 5 octobre 2026, all in lower case, with no “de” and no “th”. Once the class says the date aloud every lesson, the written version follows naturally.

Adapting to your class

• A1Day and date without the year: Nous sommes le lundi 5 octobre.
• A2Add the year: … 2026.
• B1Add yesterday and tomorrow: Hier, c’était le dimanche 4 octobre ; demain, ce sera le mardi 6 octobre.
• B2Add the season and the week number: Nous sommes en automne, en semaine 41.

At KS2, the day and the date are enough. At KS3, the year is where pupils consolidate the big numbers, including quatre-vingt-dix. At GCSE level, the date becomes a springboard for tenses: Le 5 octobre de l’année dernière…

Frequently asked questions