~6 min · 11 exercises

Part of the unit “Daily life: describing your ordinary day, morning to evening”

Dani u nedelji i meseci

days-months

Overview

Serbian has seven day names and twelve month names, lowercase by default - the only thing that ever capitalizes one is the ordinary rule that capitalizes any sentence's first word.

Days and months behave differently: on a day uses у + accusative, in a month uses у + a fixed -у ending. Both are given here as ready-to-use chunks - the full case paradigms come later.

Days of the week

The seven days: понедељак (Monday), уторак (Tuesday), среда (Wednesday), четвртак (Thursday), петак (Friday), субота (Saturday), недеља (Sunday). Four are masculine consonant-ending nouns (понедељак, уторак, четвртак, петак); three end in -а and are feminine (среда, субота, недеља).

To say on a day, use у + accusative: masculine days don't change (у понедељак), feminine days take -у, just like the feminine nouns in cases-introduction-a1 - среда → среду, субота → суботу, недеља → недељу.

Months

The twelve months: јануар, фебруар, март, април, мај, јун, јул, август, септембар, октобар, новембар, децембар - all masculine, and all international/Latinate names.

To say in a month, use у + a special -у ending: у јануару, у марту, у септембру. This ending belongs to the locative case (covered fully in a later lesson) - for now, just learn у + [месец]у as one fixed chunk.

Special cases

Недеља means both Sunday and week - context tells them apart. A less common synonym, седмица, exists specifically for week.

The one exception is positional, not lexical: a day or month name is capitalized only when it happens to start a sentence, exactly like any other word - never in a date or a title.

Tables

Days of the week
Day	Meaning	„u“ + accusative
ponedeljak	Monday	u ponedeljak
utorak	Tuesday	u utorak
sreda	Wednesday	u sredu
četvrtak	Thursday	u četvrtak
petak	Friday	u petak
subota	Saturday	u subotu
nedelja	Sunday	u nedelju

Examples

Danas je ponedeljak.

Today is Monday.

Days are never capitalized in Serbian, unlike English.

Dolazim u sredu.

I'm arriving on Wednesday.

среда is feminine: accusative у среду.

Ne radim u nedelju.

I don't work on Sunday.

недеља (Sunday) takes the accusative -у after у, same as среда.

Moj rođendan je u januaru.

My birthday is in January.

Months use у + the -у ending: јануар → јануару.

Škola počinje u septembru.

School starts in September.

септембар → септембру, the same -у ending.

Jun, jul i avgust su letnji meseci.

June, July and August are the summer months.

Danas nije ponedeljak, danas je utorak.

Today isn't Monday, it's Tuesday.

The negated бити from negation-a1 works with day names too.

Dolazimo u septembru, ne u avgustu.

We're arriving in September, not in August.

Two month forms contrasted in one sentence.

Compared with…

English capitalizes every day and month name without exception (Monday, January) - the single biggest transfer error going the other way. English also marks no case ending on the word itself; on Monday and in January rely entirely on the preposition, while Serbian additionally changes the noun.

Serbian

Dolazim u sredu, ne u ponedeljak.

English capitalizes both days; Serbian capitalizes neither.

English

I'm arriving on Wednesday, not on Monday.

Common mistakes

Wrong

Danas je Ponedeljak.

Right

Danas je ponedeljak.

Days of the week are never capitalized in Serbian, unlike English.

Wrong

Dolazim u sreda.

Right

Dolazim u sredu.

Feminine day names take the accusative ending -у after у: среда → среду.

Wrong

Rođendan mi je u januar.

Right

Rođendan mi je u januaru.

Months take the -у ending after у, not the plain dictionary form.

Wrong

Ne radim u subotu i u nedelja.

Right

Ne radim u subotu i u nedelju.

Недеља also needs its accusative ending -у after у, just like субота.

Tips & exceptions

Tips

Days and months are lowercase in Serbian - never capitalize them just because they name a day or month. If one opens a sentence, it's capitalized like any other word, for that reason only.
Memorize which days are feminine (среда, субота, недеља - all end in -а) versus masculine (понедељак, уторак, четвртак, петак - all end in a consonant); that tells you whether у changes the word or leaves it alone.
All twelve months take the same -у ending after у, with no exceptions - much simpler than the day-name gender split.

Exceptions

Недеља means both Sunday and week; context tells them apart, though седмица exists as a dedicated word for week.
Month names are international/Latinate rather than native Slavic words, unlike some other Slavic languages that use native month names - this makes them easy to recognize but means they don't follow ordinary Serbian noun-derivation patterns.
The abbreviated numeric date format is day.month.year with dots - 15.3.2026. - the reverse order and different punctuation from American English 3/15/2026.

Summary

Serbian has seven day names (four masculine, three feminine -а nouns) and twelve masculine month names, lowercase unless one opens a sentence - the ordinary rule, not an exception for these words. On a day uses у + accusative (feminine days change: среда → среду; masculine days don't). In a month uses у + a fixed -у ending on every month, with no exceptions. English's habit of capitalizing both is the main thing to unlearn.