Whether you’re planning a vacation or just going about your normal life, dates are going to be important at some point. And when you’re learning the dates in a new language, it can be a little confusing. It’s not as simple as translating “August 7, 1958” into another language, because each language has a slightly different way of going about it. To help you out, we created this quick and easy guide to help you write the date in Portuguese!
Days Of The Week In Portuguese
Note: Like in the United States (but unlike most other countries), Portuguese assigns Sunday as the first day of the week. This is especially apparent in Portuguese because the weekdays are all numbered. For example, a segunda-feira means Monday, but literally translates to “second market day.” Also, in Portuguese the day of the week is always preceded by o or a.
Sunday — o domingo
Monday — a segunda-feira
Tuesday — a terça-feira
Wednesday — a quarta-feira
Thursday — a quinta-feira
Friday — a sexta-feira
Saturday — o sábado
Months Of The Year In Portuguese
January — janeiro
February — fevereiro
March — março
April — abril
May — maio
June — junho
July — julho
August — agosto
September — setembro
October — outubro
November — novembro
December — dezembro
Write The Date In Portuguese
Like most places, there are two main ways to write the date in Portuguese: one that uses all numbers and one that mixes numbers and words. If you want to say the date aloud, you’re going to want to use the one with words in it (and for that, you’ll want to check out our guide to counting in Portuguese).
The numbers-only method is pretty similar to how people write the date in the United States, with minor changes. Instead of doing mm/dd/yy, in Portuguese, it would be dd/mm/yyyy. That means August 7, 1958 would be 07/08/1958. There are also differences on whether it should be 07/08/1958 or 7/8/1958, but that’s more a matter of personal taste than hard-and-fast rules.
The word method is also pretty simple. The format is [day of the week], [day] de [month] de [year]. Therefore Thursday, August 7, 1958, would be a quinta-feira, 7 de agosto de 1958. Also notable here is that, unlike English, Portuguese doesn’t capitalize the days of the week or names of the months.
When reading this date aloud, you would say a quinta-feira, dia sete de agosto de mil novecentos e cinquenta e oito. The word dia comes before the day of the month in most cases. The one exception to this rule is the first of the month, in which case the word primeiro is used, which means “first.”
And with that, you’re ready to head off to Portugal or Brazil! Or, at the least, pick which dates you’re going to travel, which is a good first step.