If you’re traveling to the Netherlands any time soon, it’s important to know how to write the date in Dutch. Whether you’re going to be rallying for a rave in Rotterdam or hoping for a lovely dinner date in The Hague, you don’t want to miss the event of a lifetime just because you read the date backward! Luckily, learning this culturally relevant skill is pretty intuitive; it’s not all that hard to learn how to write the date in Dutch.
Read on to learn about the Dutch days of the week, the months, and how to put them together.
Days Of The Week In Dutch (De dagen van de week)
To learn how to write the date in Dutch, you’ve first got to know the names of the days of the week (and how they’re commonly abbreviated). Most of Europe begins its week on Mondays, not Sundays, and the Dutch are no exception. Keep in mind that none of the names of the days are capitalized in Dutch.
Monday — maandag (ma.)
Tuesday — dinsdag (di.)
Wednesday — woensdag (wo.)
Thursday — donderdag (do.)
Friday — vrijdag (vr.)
Saturday — zaterdag (za.)
Sunday — zondag (zo.)
Months Of The Year In Dutch (De maanden van het jaar)
Here’s a list of the months in Dutch. Just like the days of the week, the names of the months aren’t capitalized. You’ll notice that one-third of the months are written exactly the same as in English!
January — januari (jan.)
February — februari (febr.)
March — maart (mrt.)
April — april (apr)
May — mei
June — juni
July — juli
August — augustus (aug.)
September — september (sep.)
October — oktober (okt.)
November — november (nov.)
December — december (dec.)
How To Write The Date In Dutch
Learning how to write the date in Dutch is really no major challenge once you know how to talk about its individual parts. Just put them together in the right order, and you’re ready to go!
The standard numeric date format in the Netherlands, like in most of Europe, is [day] [month] [year]. This means a Dutch speaker would write Tuesday, March 12, 2019 as dinsdag 12 maart 2019. If you wanted to abbreviate it, you could write di. 12 mrt. 2019, and in numerical format, that would be 12-03-2019 (or, with slashes, 12/03/2019).
If you haven’t learned (or have totally forgotten) how to count in Dutch, brush up on your numerical knowledge with this guide. You’ll need it to talk about any day of the year!