Dates: le 14 juillet

Dates: le 14 juillet

A French date is three pieces: le, the ordinary number, the month. No "th", no "of".

Only the 1st takes an ordinal, premier, written 1er: le 1er janvier. Every other day is a plain number, so le deux mai, never le deuxième mai.

To say what the date is today:

• Aujourd'hui, c'est le 14 juillet. - Today is the 14th of July.
• On est le 3 mai. - It's the 3rd of May.
• Nous sommes le 3 mai. - It's the 3rd of May. (more formal)

To ask the date, the neutral question is Quelle est la date aujourd'hui ? In conversation you will hear On est le combien ?, literally "we are the how-many?", informal but entirely normal. To add the weekday, put it after le: le lundi 14 juillet (Monday the 14th of July).

Years

Say the year as one ordinary number: 2026 is deux mille vingt-six, never split into twenty twenty-six. "In" a year is en: en 2026. A full date runs day, month, year: le 14 juillet 2026.

Writing dates in numbers

France writes the day first: 14/07 is the 14th of July, and 03/05 is the 3rd of May, not the 5th of March. A British reader is already at home; an American one reads it backwards.