Dates and Time in Dutch: Days, Months and Telling the Time — A1 Dutch Grammar Course, Lesson 12 | My Dutch Journal

Dates and Time in Dutch: Days, Months and Telling the Time | A1 Dutch, Lesson 12

July 4, 2026

Chef Smakelijk — the My Dutch Journal mascot

Welcome to lesson twelve of the A1 Dutch Grammar Course. In the previous lessons you learned how to build sentences, ask questions, and use the Dutch number system. In this lesson, you are going to put those numbers to work in the most practical way possible: talking about days, months, dates, and telling the time. By the end of this lesson, you will know the seven days of the week, the twelve months of the year, how to ask and say what time it is — including the Dutch half-hour system, which works differently from English — and which prepositions to use with time expressions.

De zeven dagen van de week

Here are the seven days of the week. The working week runs from maandag to vrijdag, and the weekend is zaterdag and zondag. Three extra words you will need: vandaag — today, morgen — tomorrow, and gisteren — yesterday. One important spelling rule: in Dutch, the days of the week are not capitalized. You write maandag with a lowercase m, not Maandag. The same applies to the months. Het is vandaag woensdag — today is Wednesday. Ik ga morgen naar de markt — I go to the market tomorrow. Zij werkt op maandag en dinsdag — she works on Monday and Tuesday. Notice the preposition: on a specific day, you use op in Dutch.

Dag	English
1. maandag	Monday
2. dinsdag	Tuesday
3. woensdag	Wednesday
4. donderdag	Thursday
5. vrijdag	Friday
6. zaterdag	Saturday
7. zondag	Sunday

De twaalf maanden en de datum

A year has twelve months. You have to learn them by name — there are no shortcuts. Januari is the first month, december is the last. Months, like days, are written with a lowercase letter in Dutch: januari, februari — not Januari, Februari. For writing a date, the format is: number, then month name, then optionally the year. Vijftien juni, or vijftien juni tweeduizendvijfentwintig. You can also add the day name in front: zondag vijftien juni. In written notation, the order is always day-month-year: 15-06-2025. This is different from the American format, which puts the month first.

Hoe laat is het?

To ask what time it is, you say: hoe laat is het? The answer starts with het is. Het is drie uur — it is three o'clock. Het is vijf over drie — it is five past three. Het is tien over drie — ten past three. Het is kwart over drie — a quarter past three. For times close to the next full hour, Dutch counts toward the next hour. Het is kwart voor vier — a quarter to four, meaning three forty-five. Het is tien voor vier — ten to four, three fifty. Het is vijf voor vier — five to four, three fifty-five. The logic is: you count up to the next full hour, not back from the current one. When you tell someone what time something happens, use om before the time: de les begint om kwart over negen.

Tijd	Zeg je
3:00	drie uur
3:05	vijf over drie
3:10	tien over drie
3:15	kwart over drie
3:45	kwart voor vier
3:50	tien voor vier
3:55	vijf voor vier

Half vier = 3:30 — niet 4:30!

Now for the part of Dutch time-telling that surprises most learners: the half. In Dutch, half vier does NOT mean half past four. It means three thirty — halfway to four. The Dutch half always refers to the hour that is coming, not the one that just passed. So half acht is seven thirty, not eight thirty. Half elf is ten thirty, not eleven thirty. This is different from English expressions like half past three, which means three thirty. To express times around the half, you use the same over and voor logic, but the reference point is the half itself. Vijf voor half vier is five before the half — which is three twenty-five. Tien voor half vier is three twenty. Vijf over half vier is three thirty-five. Tien over half vier is three forty. If you remember one thing from this lesson, let it be this: half vier = drie uur dertig.

Tijd	Zeg je	English
3:20	tien voor half vier	ten before 3:30
3:25	vijf voor half vier	five before 3:30
3:30	half vier	halfway to four
3:35	vijf over half vier	five after 3:30
3:40	tien over half vier	ten after 3:30

Om, op of in?

Three prepositions are essential for talking about time: om, op, and in. Om goes before an exact clock time. De les begint om negen uur. Ik ga om half elf naar bed. De trein vertrekt om kwart voor acht. Op goes before a day of the week or a specific date. Ik ga op maandag naar school. Zij trouwen op vijftien juni. Het feest is op zaterdag. In goes before a month or a year. Hij is jarig in april. Wij gaan in de zomer op vakantie. Dit gebouw is gebouwd in negentienhonderdvijfenzeventig. A useful rule summarizes this: for a month or year, use in. For a date or a day, use op. And for a time range, use van...tot: de winkel is open van negen tot vijf.

Wat heb je geleerd?

Here is what you learned in this lesson. Dutch has seven days of the week and twelve months — none of them capitalized. The date format is day number plus month name plus year, in that order. For telling the time, Dutch counts toward the next full hour in expressions like kwart voor vier, and toward the half in expressions like vijf voor half vier. The most important thing to remember is the Dutch half: half vier means three thirty, not four thirty. The half always points to the next hour. And for time prepositions: om for clock times, op for days and specific dates, in for months and years. In lesson thirteen, you will learn how to form Dutch plurals — the rules for turning a singular noun into its plural form.

Practice What You Learned

Reading about grammar is step one — using it is what makes it stick. In My Dutch Journal Academy you can watch the full video of this lesson, do interactive exercises that check your answers instantly, and practise all the vocabulary from the A1 course.