Italian words for every day: days, months, numbers and greetings, IPA
These pages gather the Italian words that open every conversation and every calendar: lunedì to domenica, gennaio to dicembre, uno to un miliardo, and ciao to arrivederci, each with IPA, spelling rules and the polite and familiar forms.
How Italian words are spelled and pronounced
- italianoItalian Latin script
- lunedìMonday final stress, grave accent
- ventitrétwenty-three final stress, acute accent
Italian is written with 21 native letters. English Wikipedia's article on Italian orthography counts five vowels and sixteen consonants; J, K, W, X and Y appear only in loanwords, foreign names and a handful of regional words. The Italian alphabet on this site shows the full set. Accents mark a stressed final vowel, so many basic Italian words carry one: lunedì, città, ventitré.
The hard part for learners is the double consonant. Italian contrasts short and long consonants, so otto, sette and mille are said with a held consonant, and the length can change the meaning of a word. The topic pages give the IPA for every word, with the doubled consonants split across syllables as Wiktionary transcribes them.
Standard Italian is based on literary Florentine Tuscan, and it is, with Sardinian, the Romance language least changed from Latin, according to English Wikipedia's article on the language. That shows in the Italian words for the days of the week, which keep the Latin planets almost intact. The Romance word list sets 243 Italian words beside Latin, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Romanian.
Grammar decides two things a learner meets on the first day. Every noun is masculine or feminine (il lunedì, la domenica), and every greeting depends on whether the other person is tu or Lei. Both run through the four topic pages below.
Italian words by topic
Four pages of Italian words with full tables, IPA, rules for accents and articles, example sentences and the forms that change between familiar and polite speech.
- 01Days of the week in Italian: lunedì to domenica with IPA and accentsThe days of the week in Italian are lunedì, martedì, mercoledì, giovedì, venerdì, sabato and domenica. They are written in lower case, five of them end in a stressed -dì with a grave accent, and the Italian week begins on lunedì.
- 02Months in Italian: gennaio to dicembre, IPA, dates and il primoThe months in Italian are gennaio, febbraio, marzo, aprile, maggio, giugno, luglio, agosto, settembre, ottobre, novembre and dicembre. Italian writes them in lower case, all twelve are masculine, and a date puts the day first: il 2 giugno 2026.
- 03Numbers in Italian from zero to a miliardo: IPA, ordinals and rulesNumbers in Italian start uno, due, tre, quattro, cinque, sei, sette, otto, nove, dieci. Compound numbers are written as one word (duemilaventisei is 2026), the tens drop their vowel before uno and otto, and every compound ending in tre takes an accent: ventitré.
- 04Greetings in Italian: ciao, buongiorno, buonasera, salve, arrivederciThe basic greetings in Italian are ciao among friends and buongiorno or buonasera with everyone else. Ciao works for hello and goodbye; the polite goodbye is arrivederci, or arrivederla to a person addressed as Lei.
Countries where Italian is an official language
Italian is an official language in four states: Italy, San Marino, Switzerland and Vatican City. In Switzerland it is official nationally and in the cantons of Ticino and Graubünden (Grisons), listed on the Swiss cantons page. In Vatican City it is the language of the state's laws, while Latin is the official language of the Holy See.
Italian has official minority status in Croatia and Slovenia, in Istria, and in a few other places, and it is widely spoken in Malta, where it was an official language until 1934. Estimates in English Wikipedia's article put its speakers at 68 to 85 million, about 64 million of them native.
The Italian words on these pages are standard Italian. Where a region differs in a basic word or habit, such as buonasera from the early afternoon in Tuscany, the topic page says so.
Questions about Italian words
What are the first Italian words to learn?
Ciao, buongiorno and arrivederci, the numbers from uno to dieci, and the days and months. They appear in nearly every conversation, timetable and date.
Why do some Italian words have accents?
An accent marks stress on the final vowel of a word with more than one syllable: lunedì, città, ventitré. It is part of the spelling, not optional.
How many letters does the Italian alphabet have?
Twenty-one native letters. J, K, W, X and Y are used only in loanwords, foreign names and a few regional words.
Are Italian days and months capitalized?
No. Italian writes both in lower case: lunedì, gennaio. They take a capital only at the start of a sentence or in the name of a feast.