How to express the date

Four important concepts are introduced right after the conversation of our two teachers.

audio

• 年(nián) year
  In Chinese, we say each digit and put 年(nián) at the end.
  2019年 二零一九年 (èr líng yī jiǔ nián)

• 月(yuè) month
  In Chinese, the months are numbered in sequence. If you know how to count numbers in Chinese, you can easily master how to say month in Chinese.

一月(yīyuè) 二月(èryuè) 三月(sānyuè) 四月(sìyuè) 五月(wǔyuè)

六月(liùyuè) 七月(qīyuè) 八月(bāyuè) 九月(jiǔyuè)

十月(shíyuè) 十一月(shíyīyuè) 十二月(shíèryuè)

• 日(rì) day of the month(formal)
  5月1日 五月一日(wǔyuè yī rì)

  号(hào) day of the month(informal)
  5月1号 五月一号(wǔyuè yī hào)

The correct order of expressing the date in Chinese should be year+month+date because we observe the principle of putting the bigger unit before the smaller one.

Think: How to say February 14, 2019 in Chinese? 今天（是）几月几号？(Jīntiān (shì) jǐ yuè jǐ hào?) is used for asking about the date and 是(shì) is optional in this question. Here “几(jǐ)” is used to ask about the number(the number in the date).

• Besides the expressions of the date, we also talk about the expressions of the week.

  星期一(xīngqīyī) 星期二(xīngqīèr) 星期三(xīngqīsān)

  星期四(xīngqīsì) 星期五(xīngqīwǔ) 星期六(xīngqīliù)

  星期天/日(xīngqītiān/rì)

你的生日是星期几？ (Nǐ de shēngrì shì xīngqījǐ?) means “what’s the day of your birthday?”.

Think：How to answer the above question?

This video provides several examples with situational usages to introduce the patterns of asking the date and the week. You might want to use them in your daily life promptly.