- In Chinese, names for days of the week are based on a simple numerical sequence.
- The word for ‘week’ is followed by a number indicating the day: ‘Monday’ is literally ‘week one’, ‘Tuesday’ is ‘week two’, etc.
| Weekdays | Chinese Character | Pinyin | Pronunciation |
| Monday | 星期一 | xīng qī yī | |
| Tuesday | 星期二 | xīng qī èr | |
| Wednesday | 星期三 | xīng qī sān | |
| Thursday | 星期四 | xīng qī sì | |
| Friday | 星期五 | xīng qī wǔ | |
| Saturday | 星期六 | xīng qī liù | |
| Sunday | 星期日 | xīng qī rì | |
| 星期天 | xīng qī tiān |
Notes:
- 星期(xīng qī) means week.
- A week is a 星期, literally a “star period”.
- Sunday is slightly different, giving us two choices: 星期日 and 星期天.
- There are two other ways to express weeks and days, they are 周(zhōu) and 礼拜(lǐ bài). Both of these have the day number appended in the same way as for 星期.
- For weekend, we say 周末 (zhōu mò).
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Hi Min Min! I was just wondering, is the ‘期’ in ‘星期’ suppose to be pronounced in the 1st tone or 2nd tone?
Thanks!
Hi Elina,
期 should be pronounced as 1st tone, qī.
ok, great! Thx Min Min! ^_^
Ni Hao MinMIn
I am Priyanka from India. I am learning Chinese. I have some doubt while making sentence. will you able to help me out? via E-mail. or Skype .
Priyanka Chavan
Hi Priyanka Chavan,
You can check my sentence structure tutorial here:
http://www.learnchineseeveryday.com/tag/chinese-sentence-structure/
Hope this will help you to more understand about Chinese sentence.
Hi , i am living in China, i can help for you
The standard pronunciation should be the 2nd tone.
Because the character ‘期‘ is created by two characters ‘ 其’ + ‘月’。
The ‘期‘ is based on the sound of ‘其’ and used ‘ 月 ‘ to represent a period of time.
Hello, could you please explain what is the difference between 星期 and 周 and礼拜? I understand from this article that 星期 is most commonly used but how about the other ones?
Hello, could you please let me know how to translate “days of the week” into Chinese-Mandarin please. Thank you for your help!
Hi Carol,
You can say, 一星期的每一天。