Days of the Week in Russian (with Pronunciation and Prepositions)

In today’s lesson we’re going to expand your vocabulary a little bit. Days of the week is the topic which every Russian learner should know from the beginning. We often mention days in our everyday conversation, so if you don’t know the names of the days in Russian, you may have some problems.

In Russia the first day os the week is… Monday! Not Sunday, like in US or Canada. This is the beginning of hard work. No one likes Monday here, like everywhere though.

So, let’s learn all seven days of the week:

понедельник – Monday
вторник – Tuesday
среда – Wednesday
четверг – Thursday
пятница – Friday
суббота – Saturday
воскресенье – Sunday

You should also notice that the days of the week in Russian are not capitalised.

The names of the days ending in a (среда, пятница, суббота) are Feminine. Воскресенье ends in “e”, so it’s Neutral.  All the other days are Masculine.

Another important thing about the days of the week are the prepositions which we use with them. And these words change their endings when you use them in different cases.

How to answer the questions: When? (On) what day?

We use this scheme: в(о) + the name of the day in the accusative case

В понедельник. – On Monday.
Во вторник. – On Tuesday.
В среду. – On Wednesday.
В четверг. – On Thursday.
В пятницу. – On Friday.
В субботу. – On Saturday.
В воскресенье. – On Sunday.

We use во with the word вторник, because it starts with “в” and a consonant after it. Would be really hard to pronunce “в вторник”. Note that only feminine nouns change their ending with the preposition “в”.

В пятницу я пойду в больницу. – On Friday I’ll go to the hospital.

Instead of [в + the day], we can use [по + the day] in some situations. For example, when talking about schedules.

По понедельникам.
По вторникам.
По средам.
По четвергам.
По пятницам.
По субботам.
По воскресеньям. 

The endings are mostly the same – (а)м..

По пятницам я смотрю кино по телевизору. –  On Fridays (=every Friday) I watch movies on TV.

По вторникам я хожу на курсы английского. – I attend English classes every Tuesday.

Я не работаю по субботам (в субботу). – I don’t work on Monday.

Мой сын не учится по воскресеньям. – My son doesn’t study on Sunday.

We can also use the word каждый (-ое, -ая) in these cases but without a preposition.

Я хожу в церковь каждое воскресенье. – I go to church every Sunday.

Finally, there’s a video for you to learn the Russian names of days of the week. You can find some more examples there and hear the real pronounciation of these words.

Enjoy your studying!