Dates in Spanish: How to Write and Ask Any Date (Interactive Calendar) (2024)

In this article, I explain all you need to know about the Spanish dates. But if you are looking for a quick answer, you may find useful this interactive Spanish calendar.

How to say the date in Spanish

Spanish dates are very different from English ones. Let’s see an example:

2 de enero de 1992 (dos de enero de mil novecientos noventa y dos).

• The elements of the date must be named in ascending order: day + month + year.
• To “connect” day, month and year, always use the preposition de (of).
• Both years and days of the month are expressed using normal cardinal numbers (dos, tres, cuatro, …, treinta y uno), except the first day of the month, which is usually expressed using an ordinal number (primero, instead of uno). In Spain, though, the first day is also expressed with a cardinal: uno.

Asking and responding: How to say “What is the date” in Spanish

When asking or giving the date, you can use either the verb ser or estar.

• The verb estar is used in the first-person plural (estamos), along with the preposition a:

¿A cuántos estamos? Estamos a tres de febrero.

¿A qué (día) estamos? Estamos a lunes.

• The verb ser is used in the third-person singular (es), without any preposition:

¿Qué día es? Es cuatro de marzo.

¿Qué día (de la semana) es? Es martes.

• With any other verb, use the article el:

¿Cuándo llegarás? Llegaré el cinco de abril.

¿Cuándo me llamarás? Te llamaré el miércoles.

• In some cases, like on letters or formal documents, you can replace the article el with the preposition a:

Expido el presente certificado en Madrid, a 6 de mayo de 1999.

• In order to say just the month and/or the year, the preposition en must be used:

Estamos en mayo (de 2019).

Ana Comneno nació en 1083.

• If you want to explicitly include the word mes (month), then it must be followed by the preposition de (mes de…). This is optional (and rather unusual) in the case of the word año (year).

Estamos en el mes de junio.

Steve Jobs murió en el año (de) 2011.

• In many cases, the article el is used just before the year. This is more frequent from the year 2000 onwards, but it’s only required when abbreviating the year by omitting the first two digits (for example, 27 instead of 1927):

Nací en el 75.

Heath Ledger murió en (el) 2008.

Estamos en enero de(l) 2016.

Years in Spanish

As we have seen, in order to say the year you simply name the corresponding cardinal number. To know how to form any cardinal, visit our article about numbers in Spanish.

A frequent error is to write the year with a dot to separate the thousands (2.016).

For dates before the year 1 BC, the expression antes de Cristo (before Christ) is typically used. After Christ would be después de Cristo. The abbreviations are a.C. and d.C., respectively:

Roma se fundó en el año 753 a.C. (antes de Cristo).

Marco Aurelio nació en el año 121 d.C. (después de Cristo).

Date intervals: How to say “From date to date” in Spanish

In order to express date intervals, you can use the prepositions de – a, or also desde – hasta.

Estaré de vacaciones del 1 al 15 de julio.

Esa tienda estuvo cerrada desde el 7 de agosto hasta el 8 de septiembre.

How to write the date in Spanish

For the most part, writing dates in Spanish is no different than saying them aloud. You just have to keep in mind some spelling guidelines:

• Typically, the day of the month and the year are written with numbers, and the month (which, unlike in English, is never capitalized) is written with letters, like so: 11 de octubre de 2017.
• The days of the week are also written with lowercase letters (unless, of course, they are at the beginning of the sentence): Es viernes.
• In some legal documents, bank checks, etc., the dates may be written entirely with letters: Veintiséis de marzo de mil novecientos ochenta.
• The year can also be written with Roman numerals. This is only normal in monuments and commemorative plaques.

Shorthand notation

Very frequently, dates are written in abbreviated format with numbers only (17 de diciembre de 2009 → 17/12/2009):

• The order is still “day + month + year“.
• The year can also be abbreviated, by omitting the first two digits: 17/12/09.
• Sometimes, Roman numerals are used to express the month: 17/XII/2009.
• The separators can be either hyphens, slashes or dots (without spaces): 26-9-1998, 12/III/1971, 14.10.00.
• Unless, for technical reasons, it is strictly necessary, it’s recommended to avoid leading zeros: 04-02-2010.

On a letter

On letters, it’s common to add the city before the date. Also, it’s recommended to omit the article (noviembre de 2006, better than noviembre del 2006).

Los Angeles, 21 de octubre de 1967.

Firmado en Madrid, a 3 de septiembre de 2003.

Spanish vocabulary related to dates

Here are some of the most frequently used words and expression related to dates:

(*) A variant of the word anteayer is antier, which is frequent mainly in Central America and Mexico.

Days of the week

The days of the week in Spanish are:

All of them are masculine nouns: el próximo lunes, los domingos…

Note: In the Spanish-speaking countries, the first day of the week is not Sunday, but Monday (lunes), as you can see in the calendar above.

Months of the year

The names of the months of the year in Spanish are:

Like the days of the week, the names of the months are masculine nouns (a cold December → un frío (mes de) diciembre) and are never capitalized.

Seasons

Here are the four seasons of the year in Spanish:

Unspecific dates

Sometimes you know a date only approximately. These are some frequently used expressions for those unspecific dates:

Special Spanish dates

As in any other language, there are some special dates with “proper name” in Spanish:

Of course, there are also many special days in the Christian tradition:

Example sentences and idioms

El pasado miércoles, 21 de diciembre, fue el solsticio de invierno.

El año que viene es bisiesto.

Volveré dentro de dos semanas y media.

Marta volvió al cabo de tres semanas.

Compré el carro hace tres sábados.

David era un jovencito de veinte primaveras.

Gracias a las olimpiadas, los hoteles están haciendo su agosto.

No fue nada del otro jueves.

¡Miércoles!

References

• Articles, in Spanish, by the RAE's Diccionario Panhispánico de Dudas about:
  • the fecha (date).
  • the días de la semana (days of the week).
  • the word anteayer (the day before yesterday).