Vietnamese · tiếng Việt · Latin script
Days of the week in Vietnamese: thứ hai to chủ nhật, tones and IPA
The days of the week in Vietnamese are numbered: thứ hai (Monday), thứ ba, thứ tư, thứ năm, thứ sáu, thứ bảy, and then chủ nhật for Sunday. Thứ means the ordinal, so Monday is literally the second day, and no day of the week is called the first.
The days of the week in Vietnamese, Monday to Sunday
The IPA follows the Hanoi pronunciation; the note column says where Saigon speech differs. The abbreviation column gives the two forms phones and calendars print: the abbreviated name and, after the dot, the short form of a calendar header.
| English | Vietnamese | IPA | Abbr. | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | thứ hai | [tʰɨ˧˦ haːj˧˧] | Thứ 2 · T2 | hai, two: the second day |
| Tuesday | thứ ba | [tʰɨ˧˦ ʔɓaː˧˧] | Thứ 3 · T3 | ba, three |
| Wednesday | thứ tư | [tʰɨ˧˦ tɨ˧˧] | Thứ 4 · T4 | tư, the ordinal form of four |
| Thursday | thứ năm | [tʰɨ˧˦ nam˧˧] | Thứ 5 · T5 | năm, five; also the word for year |
| Friday | thứ sáu | [tʰɨ˧˦ saw˧˦] | Thứ 6 · T6 | sáu, six; Saigon may say [ʂa(ː)w˦˥] |
| Saturday | thứ bảy | [tʰɨ˧˦ ʔɓaj˧˩] | Thứ 7 · T7 | bảy, seven; hỏi tone |
| Sunday | chủ nhật主日 | [t͡ɕu˧˩ ɲət̚˧˨ʔ] | CN | Lord's day; Saigon [cʊw˨˩˦ ɲək̚˨˩˨] |
IPA and etymologies: Wiktionary entries for each day (Hà Nội and Saigon transcriptions). Abbreviations: Unicode CLDR locale data for Vietnamese (vi), abbreviated and short weekday names; CLDR has one form, CN, for Sunday. Capitals in official writing: Decree 30/2020/NĐ-CP, Appendix II.
Why the days of the week in Vietnamese are numbers
Each weekday name is thứ plus a numeral. Thứ is the Sino-Vietnamese prefix that turns a number into an ordinal, so thứ hai means second, thứ ba third and thứ bảy seventh. Wiktionary describes the six names as calques of the Portuguese weekdays: segunda-feira, the second weekday, became thứ hai, and terça-feira became thứ ba. Portuguese Jesuits were among the first Europeans to write Vietnamese in Latin letters in the 17th century, which explains the model.
The count starts at two because the Church week counted Sunday as day one. Sunday itself has a name of its own, chủ nhật, a Sino-Vietnamese reading of 主日, the Lord's day. It is the same idea behind Portuguese domingo and French dimanche, both from Latin dies Dominicus. Wiktionary lists several older and alternative spellings, among them chúa nhật and chủ nhựt.
Numbering the days of the week in Vietnamese has one consequence that trips up learners: there is no thứ một. Friday is thứ sáu, the sixth, although it is the fifth day of a week that starts on Monday, so a learner who matches the numbers to positions on a Monday-first calendar will be off by one every time. The trick is to add one to the English position: Monday, day one, takes hai, two.
Thứ tư, not thứ bốn: the word for four
Vietnamese has two words for four. Bốn is the everyday cardinal, used for counting things. Tư is the Sino-Vietnamese form, and it appears in ordinals: thứ tư is both fourth and Wednesday. Wiktionary notes that bốn sometimes replaces tư when the meaning is fourth in a sequence, but the weekday is always thứ tư.
The same tư turns up in April, tháng tư, the fourth month. Wiktionary calls tháng bốn possible but much less frequent. A learner who hears tư in a date therefore knows the speaker means the number four, whether the next word is a day or a month.
Thứ tư also shows the ambiguity built into the system. Because the weekday names are plain ordinals, thứ hai can mean Monday or simply second, as in cuốn sách thứ hai, the second book. Context settles it: after hôm nay là, today is, the word can only be a day.
Pronouncing the days: tones and the Saigon accent
Every syllable in Vietnamese carries one of six tones, and the diacritic marks which one. Thứ has the rising sắc tone, shown by the acute accent on ư. Hai and ba are level, in the ngang tone, which has no mark. Năm has no tone mark either; its breve belongs to the vowel letter ă. Sáu rises like thứ, bảy carries the hỏi tone written with a small hook, and nhật carries the heavy nặng tone written with a dot below the vowel.
Southern speech changes two things a learner will hear in this list. Hỏi and ngã merge into one dipping tone in Saigon, so bảy sounds the same whichever mark it carries. Final -t after certain vowels is pronounced like -k, and initial ch is a plain [c], so chủ nhật comes out roughly as [cʊw˨˩˦ ɲək̚˨˩˨] in Wiktionary's Saigon transcription.
The letters themselves follow the Vietnamese alphabet, chữ Quốc ngữ. The Vietnamese alphabet on the alphabets page lists every letter, and the IPA chart explains the symbols in the table.
Using the days of the week in Vietnamese sentences
The question is hôm nay là thứ mấy?, literally today is ordinal how many?, and the answer slots the day into the same frame: hôm nay là thứ tư. Mấy asks for a small number, so the question itself shows that Vietnamese thinks of weekdays as counts.
To say on a day, Vietnamese puts vào in front: vào thứ bảy, on Saturday. This, next and last attach after the day: thứ hai này, this Monday; thứ hai tuần sau, Monday next week; thứ hai tuần trước, Monday last week. Tuần is the word for week, and cuối tuần, the end of the week, is the weekend.
Vietnamese has no plural ending, so a habit is expressed with mỗi, each: mỗi thứ hai, every Monday. Verbs do not change for time either; the day and words such as đã (already) and sẽ (will) carry it.
| Vietnamese | English |
|---|---|
| Hôm nay là thứ mấy? | What day is it today? |
| Hôm nay là thứ tư. | Today is Wednesday. |
| Thứ hai là ngày đầu tuần. | Monday is the first day of the week. |
| Chúng ta gặp nhau vào thứ bảy nhé. | Let's meet on Saturday. |
| Chủ nhật tôi nghỉ. | I'm off on Sunday. |
| Mỗi thứ sáu tôi học tiếng Anh. | Every Friday I study English. |
Thứ hai là ngày đầu tuần is the opening line of Phạm Tuyên's children's song Cả tuần đều ngoan, quoted by Wiktionary under thứ hai.
Abbreviations and the Monday-first week
Printed calendars, timetables and shop signs abbreviate the days of the week in Vietnamese with digits, which is possible only because the names are numbers. The Unicode CLDR data that phones and computers use for Vietnamese gives Thứ 2 to Thứ 7 as the abbreviated names and T2 to T7 as the short ones, with CN for Sunday in both sets. A notice reading T2–T6 therefore means Monday to Friday.
The same CLDR data puts Vietnam among the countries whose week starts on Monday, so a phone set to Vietnamese opens the calendar grid on thứ hai and ends it on chủ nhật. In a full date the weekday comes first: CLDR's long pattern prints Thứ Tư, 28 tháng 10, 2026, with the weekday capitalised as in the CLDR names.
Capitalisation varies by source. The cross-language days of the week table and Wiktionary's headwords use lower case, thứ hai; CLDR capitalises both words, Thứ Hai. Vietnam's rules for government documents, Decree 30/2020/NĐ-CP on clerical work, settle on a third style: when a day is written out in words, only the number syllable takes a capital, so official texts print thứ Hai and thứ Tư. What never varies is the spelling of the tones.
Questions about the days of the week in Vietnamese
What are the days of the week in Vietnamese?
Thứ hai (Monday), thứ ba (Tuesday), thứ tư (Wednesday), thứ năm (Thursday), thứ sáu (Friday), thứ bảy (Saturday) and chủ nhật (Sunday). The first six are ordinal numbers from second to seventh.
Why is Monday the second day in Vietnamese?
Because the names copy the Portuguese church week, which counts Sunday as day one. Monday is segunda-feira in Portuguese and thứ hai, the second, in Vietnamese.
Why is Wednesday thứ tư and not thứ bốn?
Ordinals use tư, the Sino-Vietnamese form of four. Bốn is the everyday counting word; the weekday always takes tư.
How are the days of the week in Vietnamese abbreviated?
T2 to T7 for Monday to Saturday, or Thứ 2 to Thứ 7, and CN for Sunday. The digits are the ordinal numbers in the names.
Are the days of the week capitalized in Vietnamese?
Usage differs. Dictionaries write thứ hai, phone software prints Thứ Hai, and government documents follow Decree 30/2020/NĐ-CP, which capitalises only the number word: thứ Hai.
How do you ask what day it is in Vietnamese?
Hôm nay là thứ mấy? The answer repeats the frame with the day: hôm nay là thứ năm, today is Thursday.