There are so very many reasons you might need to know how to talk about dates when you’re in Norway. You might need it when you’re scheduling your trip, or figuring out which days of the week the market is open, or trying to orient yourself with your jet lag (how is it next Tuesday already?). And if you ever want to make plans with someone in Norway, it will definitely come in handy to know which day of the week is which. With that in mind, we made this guide so you can learn how to write the date in Norwegian.
Days Of The Week In Norwegian
Note: Like many European countries, Norway considers Monday, not Sunday, the first day of the week.
Monday — mandag
Tuesday — tirsdag
Wednesday — onsdag
Thursday — torsdag
Friday — fredag
Saturday — lørdag
Sunday — søndag
Months Of The Year In Norwegian
January — januar
February — februar
March — mars
April — april
May — mai
June — juni
July — juli
August — august
September — september
October — oktober
November — november
December — desember
Putting It All Together
There are a few different ways to write the date in Norwegian. No matter what, you’ll probably want to learn the numbers in Norwegian. Fortunately, when you’re only writing the date down, you can get away with just using numerals.
The first method of writing the date involves only numerals. The basic format is DD.MM.YYYY, so November 18, 2003 would be styled 18.11.2003. This is basically the same as the English way to do it, but just remember that most other countries put the day before the month. You may also run into YYYY-MM-DD, which is used in some official documents, but is not very popular in other contexts.
If you want to write the date out fully, the format is [day of the week] DD. [month] YYYY. So Tuesday, November 18, 2003 would be tirsdag 18. november 2003. You can also shorten the months to the first three letters — jan., feb., mar., etc. — in certain cases. Saying the date aloud is also pretty straightforward, except you have to say the day of the month as an ordinal (like first instead of one). Thus, the date would be tirsday, attende november, to tusen tre. This will also require a bit more studying to master, but once you do it’ll be a huge help. With that, you should be ready to write the date in Norwegian!