Days of the Week and Months in Tagalog

If you already know a few words of Spanish, you are about to learn an entire calendar’s worth of Tagalog in one sitting. Spain ruled the Philippines for roughly 333 years, and the calendar came along with it — so the days and months are nearly identical to their Spanish cousins. The vocabulary is the easy part. What actually trips learners up is using a day in a sentence and reading a date out loud, and that is where this guide spends most of its time.

The Days of the Week (Mga Araw ng Linggo)

The umbrella phrase is mga araw ng linggo — literally “days of the week,” where the native word araw means “day” and lowercase linggo means “week.” Six of the seven days came directly from Spanish; only Sunday took a different route, arriving through Malay before settling into Tagalog.

Tagalog	English	From Spanish
Lunes	Monday	lunes
Martes	Tuesday	martes
Miyerkules	Wednesday	miércoles
Huwebes	Thursday	jueves
Biyernes	Friday	viernes
Sabado	Saturday	sábado
Linggo	Sunday	domingo (via Malay)

Notice the sound shifts: Spanish jueves loses its “j” sound and becomes Huwebes, while viernes swaps its “v” for a “b” to give Biyernes. Tagalog has no native “v,” “f,” or “j,” so loanwords get re-spelled to match.

Linggo vs. linggo — Sunday or week?

This is the single most useful capitalization rule in the whole calendar. Capitalized, Linggo is the day of the week — Nakita kita noong nakaraang Linggo (“I saw you last Sunday”). Lowercase, linggo is a span of seven days — sa isang linggo (“in a week”). Same spelling, different meaning, decided entirely by one capital letter.

The Months of the Year (Mga Buwan ng Taon)

The word for month is buwan, which also means “moon” — a nice reminder that months were once measured by the moon. All twelve are Spanish loanwords, and all are capitalized.

Tagalog	English	From Spanish
Enero	January	enero
Pebrero	February	febrero
Marso	March	marzo
Abril	April	abril
Mayo	May	mayo
Hunyo	June	junio
Hulyo	July	julio
Agosto	August	agosto
Setyembre	September	septiembre
Oktubre	October	octubre
Nobyembre	November	noviembre
Disyembre	December	diciembre

Spot the sound shift again: febrero becomes Pebrero because Tagalog turns the “f” into a “p.” And the four English “-ber” months are the same four “-bre/-mbre” months here — Filipinos call them the “Ber months,” the unofficial countdown to one of the world’s longest Christmas seasons.

How to Actually Use Days in a Sentence

Here is the part most flashcard lists skip. Three small words decide how a day attaches to your sentence, and picking the wrong one changes the meaning.

tuwing — every / recurring

Use tuwing for habitual, repeating events. It takes no na/-ng linker — it sits directly in front of the day.

Tagalog	English
Tuwing Lunes ako nagtatrabaho	I work every Monday
May klase ako tuwing Martes	I have class every Tuesday

For “every day,” though, Tagalog prefers the reduplicated araw-araw, not tuwing araw — say araw-araw akong nag-eehersisyo (“I exercise every day”).

sa — on an upcoming day

Use sa for one specific day that is still ahead, or for a calendar date: Magkita tayo sa Sabado (“Let’s meet on Saturday”), or Sa Enero ang kasal (“The wedding is in January”).

noong / nung — on a past day

Use noong (casual: nung) for a day already gone, often with nakaraang (“last”): Noong Lunes ako dumating (“I arrived on Monday”), noong nakaraang Linggo (“last Sunday”).

Marker	When	Example
tuwing Biyernes	every Friday	recurring
sa Biyernes	this coming Friday	upcoming
noong Biyernes	last Friday	past

These three markers also drive most of telling time, so it’s worth seeing them in their wider home — our Tagalog time expressions guide walks through kahapon, bukas, and the aspect system that pairs with them.

Saying Dates in Tagalog

Formal dates follow one tidy pattern: an ordinal number (the ika- prefix) + ng + the month. So January 1 is ika-1 ng Enero, and Valentine’s Day is ika-14 ng Pebrero. When you spell the ordinal out fully there’s no hyphen (ikalabinlima ng Enero); with a numeral you keep it (ika-15 ng Enero). The everyday spoken question is Anong petsa na — where petsa means “date.”

For a range, reach for mula … hanggang: Mula Lunes hanggang Biyernes means “From Monday to Friday.”

Pronunciation Tips for English Speakers

Tagalog vowels stay pure — a is always “ah,” e is “eh,” i is “ee,” o is “oh,” u is “oo.” There’s no English schwa, so Sabado is “sah-BAH-doh,” every vowel fully voiced, not “SAB-uh-doh.” Remember the missing letters too: no native “v,” “f,” or “j” means viernes lands as Biyernes, febrero as Pebrero, and jueves as Huwebes. The Spanish cognates even help keep look-alikes apart — Martes (Tuesday) and Huwebes (Thursday) feel unrelated once you hear martes and jueves underneath them.

You now have all seven days, all twelve months, and the three little words that make them behave in a sentence — more than most learners pick up in their first month. Say tomorrow’s day out loud, name the date, and watch how fast the Spanish patterns start doing the work for you.