Thai Days of the Week and Months: Dates, Colors and the Thai Year

The Thai days of the week are วันจันทร์ wan-jan (Monday), วันอังคาร wan-ang-kaan (Tuesday), วันพุธ wan-pút (Wednesday), วันพฤหัส wan-pá-rʉ́-hàt (Thursday), วันศุกร์ wan-sùk (Friday), วันเสาร์ wan-sǎo (Saturday) and วันอาทิตย์ wan-aa-tít (Sunday). Each one is named after a planet and has its own lucky color. The twelve months, from มกราคม mók-gà-raa-kom (January) to ธันวาคม tan-waa-kom (December), follow a simple trick: their ending tells you whether the month has 30 or 31 days.

This article gives you both lists with tones, then shows how to put them together into a full date, how the Thai year works (it is not 2026 in Thailand) and the everyday words today, tomorrow and next week.

The seven days of the week in Thai

Every day starts with วัน wan, “day”, followed by the name of a heavenly body. If you speak French or Spanish, the logic will feel familiar: Monday is the day of the moon, Tuesday the day of Mars, and so on.

A few remarks:

• Thursday has a long formal name, วันพฤหัสบดี wan-pá-rʉ́-hàt-sà-bɔɔ-dii. In speech everyone says วันพฤหัส wan-pá-rʉ́-hàt.
• Silent letters. จันทร์, ศุกร์, เสาร์ and อาทิตย์ end with letters marked by the ์ sign (การันต์ gaa-ran), which are not pronounced. They keep the spelling of the original Sanskrit word. The Thai alphabet guide explains how final letters work.
• Watch the tones. wan-pút is high, wan-sùk low, wan-sǎo rising. The tone is predictable from the spelling: ศ is a high-class consonant and ศุก is a short dead syllable, hence the low tone. Our guide to Thai tone rules shows how this works.
• In conversation, the วัน is often dropped after another time word: เสาร์อาทิตย์ sǎo-aa-tít is “the weekend” (literally “Saturday-Sunday”).

To ask which day it is:

วันนี้วันอะไร wan-níi wan à-rai: What day is it today?

วันนี้วันเสาร์ wan-níi wan-sǎo: Today is Saturday.

You can hear the days in context in the story Monday morning, where Kru May teaches Hugo the days of the week, and in Hugo’s week, which walks through his week from Thursday to a Sunday spent asleep.

Why each Thai day has a color

The colors come from Hindu astrology, inherited from India: each planet is linked to a deity with its own color, so each day has one too. This is not folklore kept in books. Thais really use it:

• Many people know the day of the week they were born on, and its color is “their” color. Some choose clothes or a car color with it in mind.
• Yellow shirts are a common sight on Mondays, because both King Bhumibol (Rama IX) and King Vajiralongkorn (Rama X) were born on a Monday.
• Temples often have a Buddha image for each day of the week. Visitors make offerings in front of the one for their birth day.

A common small-talk question is เกิดวันอะไร gə̀ət wan à-rai, “what day were you born on?”. Look up your own birth day before you go: it makes a good conversation starter.

The color words, all preceded by สี sǐi (“color”): เหลือง lʉ̌ang (yellow), ชมพู chom-puu (pink), เขียว kǐao (green), ส้ม sôm (orange), ฟ้า fáa (light blue), ม่วง mûang (purple), แดง dɛɛng (red).

Week, weekday, weekend

In everyday Thai, อาทิตย์ aa-tít means both “Sunday” and “week”. Context makes it clear: อาทิตย์หน้า aa-tít nâa is “next week”, วันอาทิตย์หน้า wan-aa-tít nâa “next Sunday”.

The 12 months in Thai

The word for “month” is เดือน dʉan. You will often hear it in front of the name: เดือนเมษายน dʉan mee-sǎa-yon, “the month of April”.

The trick: -kom, -aa-yon and February

The Thai month names were created in the late 19th century, under King Chulalongkorn, from the signs of the zodiac: มกร mók-gà-raa is Capricorn, เมษ mêet is Aries, สิงห์ sǐng is Leo. Each sign received a suffix: อาคม aa-kom or อายน aa-yon, two words that both mean “arrival”, and for February อาพันธ์ aa-pan. The choice of suffix encodes the length of the month:

1. -คม -kom: 31 days (January, March, May, July, August, October, December).
2. -ายน -aa-yon: 30 days (April, June, September, November).
3. -พันธ์ -pan: February alone, with 28 or 29 days.

So the ending is a built-in reminder that English and French speakers never get from their own month names.

Short names in speech and writing

In conversation, Thais usually drop the ending: มกรา mók-gà-raa, เมษา mee-sǎa, สิงหา sǐng-hǎa, ธันวา tan-waa. In writing, especially on forms, receipts and calendars, you will see the abbreviations in the table above, made of initials with dots: ม.ค., เม.ย., ธ.ค.

How to say the date in Thai

The pattern is วันที่ + number + month + year, in that order, from the smallest unit to the largest (like British English or French, not like American English):

วันที่ 13 เมษายน wan-tîi sìp-sǎam mee-sǎa-yon: 13 April

วันนี้วันที่เท่าไหร่ wan-níi wan-tîi tâo-rài: What is the date today?

วันนี้วันที่เจ็ด wan-níi wan-tîi jèt: Today is the seventh.

วันที่ wan-tîi means “the date” (literally “day number”). The number is an ordinary cardinal number, so you only need the Thai numbers from 1 to 31. Remember that a final 1 becomes เอ็ด èt: the 21st is วันที่ยี่สิบเอ็ด wan-tîi yîi-sìp-èt.

The full formal date adds the weekday in front, as in a letter or a newspaper:

วันเสาร์ที่ 7 พฤศจิกายน พ.ศ. 2569 wan-sǎo tîi jèt prʉ́t-sà-jì-gaa-yon pɔɔ-sɔ̌ɔ sɔ̌ɔng-pan-hâa-rɔ́ɔi-hòk-sìp-gâao Saturday 7 November 2026

Written in figures, the order stays day/month/year: 7/11/2569. To talk about a birthday, use เกิด gə̀ət (“to be born”): ผมเกิดวันที่ยี่สิบเอ็ดมีนาคม pǒm gə̀ət wan-tîi yîi-sìp-èt mii-naa-kom, “I was born on 21 March”.

The Thai year: Buddhist Era, CE + 543

Thailand counts years from the death of the Buddha, in the Buddhist Era: พุทธศักราช pút-tá-sàk-gà-raat, abbreviated พ.ศ. and read pɔɔ-sɔ̌ɔ. The rule is simple:

Thai year = Western year + 543. 2026 CE is พ.ศ. 2569.

The Western year is ค.ศ. kɔɔ-sɔ̌ɔ (คริสต์ศักราช krít-sàk-gà-raat). Thais use both, but the Buddhist year is the default on official documents, contracts, school records, newspapers and many receipts. If you rent a flat or open a bank account, the dates on your papers will be in the 2500s.

In speech, people often shorten the year to its last two digits: ปีหกเก้า bpii hòk-gâao, “the year ’69”, means 2569. The word ปี bpii means “year”: ปีนี้ bpii-níi is “this year”, ปีหน้า bpii-nâa “next year”.

Today, tomorrow, yesterday, next week

Thai verbs do not change for tense. Time words do all the work, so they are among the most useful words you can learn.

Two little words build most of these: หน้า nâa (“front”) means “next”, and ที่แล้ว tîi-lɛ́ɛo (“that is over”) means “last”. They combine with any time word: วันจันทร์หน้า wan-jan nâa (next Monday), เดือนที่แล้ว dʉan tîi-lɛ́ɛo (last month).

The time word usually comes at the start or the end of the sentence, and it alone tells you when things happen:

พรุ่งนี้ผมจะไปตลาด prûng-níi pǒm jà bpai dtà-làat: Tomorrow I will go to the market.

เมื่อวานฝนตก mʉ̂a-waan fǒn dtòk: It rained yesterday.

Note that there is no word for “on” before a day: “on Monday” is just วันจันทร์ wan-jan, and “every Monday” is ทุกวันจันทร์ túk wan-jan.

Songkran and the three Thai New Years

Dates in Thailand come with a surprise: the country celebrates the new year more than once.

• 1 January, วันขึ้นปีใหม่ wan-kʉ̂n-bpii-mài, is the official New Year’s Day. It has been the start of the Thai year since 1941; before that, the year began in April.
• Songkran, สงกรานต์ sǒng-graan, on 13–15 April, is the traditional Thai New Year. It falls in the hottest month, and it is famous for its water fights in the street. Its gentler side is รดน้ำดำหัว rót-náam-dam-hǔa, pouring scented water on the hands of elders to ask for their blessing.
• Chinese New Year, ตรุษจีน dtrùt-jiin, in January or February, is widely celebrated by Thai families of Chinese descent.

At all three you can wish สวัสดีปีใหม่ sà-wàt-dii bpii-mài, “Happy New Year”. Hugo discovers the wet version in the story Songkran.

How to practise days and months

• Say today’s date in Thai every morning, with the weekday and the Buddhist year: it trains the days, the months and the big numbers at once.
• Learn the months by their ending. Group the -คม months and the -ายน months, then the names are just a list of zodiac signs.
• Meet the words in a story. In Kru May, the days appear in Monday morning and Hugo’s week, and the words for next month and birthdays in Mali’s birthday. Every word is tappable, with its tone shown in color.