Professor Dave here, let’s learn the Italian calendar.
Time is an important concept to humans.
It’s probably one of the main reasons we started communicating with each other in the
first place.
When did something happen?
How long did it last?
When will it happen again?
Humans have invented all kinds of words and systems to answer questions like these.
Let’s learn a few of these words now, by first taking a look at the calendar, or calendario.
Any calendar will depict one trip around the sun, and in Italian, year is anno.
Each anno has four seasons, or stagioni.
So one could say, le stagioni dell’anno sono quattro.
Beyond four seasons, every year has twelve months, or mesi.
As you can see, the months of the year are not capitalized in Italian.
Every month has approximately four weeks, or settimane, and each settimana has seven
days, or giorni.
All of the days of the week are masculine, except for Sunday which is feminine, and just
like the months, the days are not capitalized.
Most of the days end in -dì, derived from the Latin word dies, which means day, and
each day is dedicated to a particular Roman god.
Lunedi` is the day of the moon.
Martedi` is the day of Mars.
Mercoledi` is the day of Mercury.
Giovedi` is the day of Jove, or Jupiter.
Venerdi` is the day of Venus.
Sabato breaks the mold, as it’s the Italian equivalent for Sabbath.
And Domenica is the day of Dominus, or god.
Let’s put some of this stuff together.
I was born on Friday, July 22nd, 1983.
That’s venerdi, ventidue luglio, millenovecentottantatre.
See if you can figure out yours!
And then, let’s check comprehension.