Other

Dates

Daten

Formats of writing dates

Order of items

Regardless of the format, we always write the date in the following order: day, month, year.

  • Translation
  • 7th of May 2020
Writing days

We write the day with a number followed by a dot.

  • Translation
  • 5th of May
  • Translation
  • Thursday the 5th of May
  • Explanation
  • Optionally the name of the day of the week may be added before the date.
Writing months

The month is usually written as the name of the month or as a number followed by a period

  • Translation
  • 3rd of May 2019
  • Explanation
  • When specifying the full month name, it is incorrect to prefix the day of the week with zero (e.g. 05. Mai 2019 is incorrect!)
  • Translation
  • 3rd of May 2019
  • Translation
  • 3rd of May 2019
Writing years

Years are always expressed as a number.

  • Translation
  • 2020 (two thousand twenty)

Applications

Days of the month
Day of the month without a definite article

It is the most often seen variant. Day of the month is always masculine. The der article is inflected for cases and the numeral describing the day is inflected like an adjective.

  • Translation
  • Tomorrow is the 1st of February.
  • Explanation
  • der + erst + Nominativ (-e) 👉 der erste
  • Translation
  • From June 14th I am on vacation.
  • Explanation
  • ab + der + vierzehnt + Dativ (-en) 👉 ab dem vierzehnten
  • Translation
  • On the 8th of December I am leaving the company.
  • Explanation
  • an + der + acht + Dativ (-en) 👉 am achten
  • Translation
  • From August 3rd to August 10th, I am in Italy.
  • Explanation
  • von + dritt + Dativ (-en) + bis zu + zehnt + Dativ (-en) 👉 vom dritten bis zum zehnten
  • Instead of using bis zum, you can use bis (Akkusativ). In that case usually the article is omitted: bis + zehnt + Akkusativ (-en) 👉 bis zehnten (bis den zehnten)
  • Translation
  • I am waiting for the 1st of December.
  • Explanation
  • auf + der + erst + Akkusativ (-en) 👉 auf den ersten
  • Translation
  • I am using a part of December 1st for charity work.
  • Explanation
  • der erst + Genitiv (-en) + Noun + (-s) 👉 des ersten Dezembers
Day of the month without an indefinite article

It is very rare, but possible that a numeral describes a day of the month using the indefinite article ein. The article is inflected for case and the numeral is inflected like an adjective with an indefinite article.

  • Translation
  • It will be January 4th. (Not necessarily on January 4th this year, but on January 4th, e.g. maybe in two years or three.)
  • Explanation
  • ein + viert + Nominativ 👉 ein vierter (Days of the month always have the article der hence + -er at the end.)
Day of the month without an article

Sometimes you can stumble upon a numeral describing the day of the month without an article. The numeral is then declined like an adjective with an indefinite article.

  • Translation
  • 11th of April: Mother's birthday
  • Explanation
  • elft + Nominativ 👉 elfter (Days of the month always have the article der hence + -er at the end.)
List of the days of the month

The table shows days of the month in the base form. Depending on the grammatical case and article, an appropriate suffix needs to be added. For instance, for the definite article it would be: Nominativ 👉 der erste, Genitiv 👉 des ersten, Dativ 👉 dem ersten, Akkusativ 👉 den ersten

# Day
1 erst
2 zweit
3 dritt
4 viert
5 fünft
6 sechst
7 siebent/siebt
8 acht
9 neunt
10 zehnt
11 elft
12 zwölft
13 dreizehnt
14 vierzehnt
15 fünfzehnt
16 sechzehnt
17 siebzehnt
18 achtzehnt
19 neunzehnt
20 zwanzigst
21 einundzwanzigst
22 zweiundzwanzigst
23 dreiundzwanzigst
24 vierundzwanzigst
25 fünfundzwanzigst
26 sechsundzwanzigst
27 siebenundzwanzigst
28 achtundzwanzigst
29 neunundzwanzigst
30 dreißigst
31 einunddreißigst
Months

Months are always masculine. Most often they use the Dativ case with one of the following prepositions: ab, bis, in, seit.

  • Translation
  • in April
  • Translation
  • from April
  • Explanation
  • ab means from some point of time in the future, e.g. right now it is January and something is about to begin from April
  • Translation
  • from April
  • Explanation
  • seit means since some point of time in the past, e.g. it is September at the moment and something has been going on since April
  • Translation
  • until April
  • Translation
  • from March to April
  • Translation
  • from beginning/middle/end of April
List of months
# Month
1 Januar
2 Februar
3 März
4 April
5 Mai
6 Juni
7 Juli
8 August
9 September
10 Oktober
11 November
12 Dezember
Expressing years

The years up to 1999 are expressed in hundreds, and the years from 2000 are expressed as cardinal numbers.

In 2001

There are two ways for describing in which year something took place: the year is preceded with im Jahr(e) (e.g. im Jahre 2001) or by simply stating the year (e.g. 2001).

  • Translation
  • The European Union was established in 1993.
In the 80's

In order to say that something happened in a given decade, e.g. in the 20's or 30's, we add the suffix -er to a cardinal number. The -er suffix is never inflected and stays as it is independently of the case, gender or number.

  • Translation
  • In the 80's, the fashion trends were different.
  • Explanation
  • Dativ; the -n suffix is added to the noun in plural form: die Jahre (the years) 👉 in den Jahren
  • Translation
  • Grandpa told me about the 60's.

Tips and tricks

Different variants of writing the date

The following examples show different variants of writing the date (on) Monday, the 25th of January, 2019.

Describing time frames from ... to
  • Translation
  • I am on vacation from 25th to 30th of January 2019.
  • Translation
  • I am on vacation from Friday 25th to Wednesday 30th of January 2019.
  • Explanation
  • When we specify a day of the week, instead of using vom we rather use von (even though the days of the week are masculine)
  • Translation
  • I am on vacation from 25th to 30th of January 2019.