This post may contain affiliate links. We may receive a commission from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you. Please read our disclosure for more information.
If you can count to six in Chinese, you already know most of the week. Monday is week one. Tuesday is week two. By Saturday, you’re at week six.
Then Sunday shows up and refuses to be week seven.
The days of the week in Chinese are xingqi (星期, week) plus a number, from Monday, xingqiyi (星期一), to Saturday, xingqiliu (星期六). Sunday is the exception: xingqitian (星期天) or xingqiri (星期日). Learn that one rule and one exception, and the whole week is yours.
The 7 Days of the Week in Chinese
| English | Chinese | Pinyin | Literally |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | 星期一 | xīngqīyī | week one |
| Tuesday | 星期二 | xīngqī’èr | week two |
| Wednesday | 星期三 | xīngqīsān | week three |
| Thursday | 星期四 | xīngqīsì | week four |
| Friday | 星期五 | xīngqīwǔ | week five |
| Saturday | 星期六 | xīngqīliù | week six |
| Sunday | 星期天 or 星期日 | xīngqītiān or xīngqīrì | week + day, or week + sun |
Since the days are just numbers, the first six Chinese numbers get you through almost the whole week.
How to Say the Days of the Week in Chinese
Xingqi has two first tones, so both syllables stay high and level. Then add the number.
To ask what day it is, say jintian xingqi ji? (今天星期几？), today is week what? The answer simply swaps ji for the number: jintian xingqisan (今天星期三), today is Wednesday.
For Sunday, both versions are correct. Xingqitian sounds a little more relaxed in conversation, and xingqiri a little more formal, the one you’ll see printed on calendars and signs.
Three Ways to Say the Days: Xingqi, Zhou, and Libai
Chinese has three words for week, and you’ll hear all of them.
| Word | Monday | Sunday | Where you’ll hear it |
|---|---|---|---|
| 星期 xīngqī | 星期一 | 星期天, 星期日 | Everywhere, the standard choice |
| 周 zhōu | 周一 | 周日 | Speech and writing, especially where space is tight |
| 礼拜 lǐbài | 礼拜一 | 礼拜天 | Casual speech; how common it is varies by region |
Zhou is the quick one. It saves a syllable and is common in both conversation and writing. You’ll see it constantly on schedules, apps, menus, and signs: zhouyi to zhouwu (周一至周五), Monday to Friday.
Libai is the one with a story. It first meant worship, and in the 1800s it also came to mean a seven-day week, the stretch between one day of worship and the next. Today, saying libaiyi or libaitian doesn’t sound religious at all, and in some regions it’s simply how people say week.
Why Isn’t Sunday Week Seven?
Long before modern weekday names were settled, Chinese astronomy knew qiyao (七曜, the seven luminaries): the sun, the moon, and five visible planets. Japanese still names its days after them, which is why Monday in Japanese is moon day.
China went a different way. By the late Qing dynasty, xingqi was already being used for the seven-day week, and in the early 1900s, education officials, including the scholar Yuan Jiagu, helped standardize the pattern used today: xingqiyi through xingqiliu, with xingqiri for Sunday.
So Sunday never became week seven. It kept ri (日, sun or day), and everyday speech added xingqitian alongside it.
Useful Phrases for Days of the Week
| English | Chinese | Pinyin |
|---|---|---|
| What day is it today? | 今天星期几？ | Jīntiān xīngqī jǐ? |
| Today is Friday | 今天星期五 | Jīntiān xīngqīwǔ |
| Weekend | 周末 | zhōumò |
| Weekday, workday | 工作日 | gōngzuòrì |
| This Friday | 这个星期五 | zhège xīngqīwǔ |
| Last week | 上周 | shàng zhōu |
| Next week | 下周 | xià zhōu |
| Next Monday | 下周一 | xià zhōuyī |
Last week is the up week and next week is the down week, the same up-and-down pattern you’ll meet with months in Chinese.
The Chinese Week in Real Life
The names are easy. How the week actually runs in China has a few surprises.
Sometimes Saturday is a workday. Around some big public holidays, China swaps days so people get a longer break, then makes up for it by working a weekend day. It’s called tiaoxiu (调休, adjusted rest), and it’s why you might hear someone groan that this Saturday is a Monday. The swaps change with each year’s official Chinese holidays calendar, so a free Saturday is never quite a given.
Thursday has become a meme. KFC China launched a weekly promotion called fengkuang xingqisi (疯狂星期四, Crazy Thursday) in 2018. Around 2021, it escaped the menu. People online started writing long, dramatic stories that swerve at the last line into V wo 50, send me 50 yuan on WeChat, so I can get KFC.
The joke caught on so widely that KFC turned it into a real gift card. It’s one of the best-known bits of Chinese internet slang, and it lands every single Thursday.
The workweek can stretch. Most offices run Monday to Friday, but some companies use daxiaozhou (大小周, big week, small week): a five-day workweek, then a six-day one, back and forth. You can guess which week nobody looks forward to. Long hours are a real part of the conversation about Chinese work culture, where 996 means nine a.m. to nine p.m., six days a week.
Writing the Day With a Date
When you add the day of the week to a date in Chinese, it goes at the end, often in parentheses in schedules and notices: 2026年3月6日（周五）, Friday, March 6, 2026. The short zhou form is very common in this kind of writing. The date in front follows the same big-to-small order as the whole Chinese date format.
Seven days, one number pattern, and a Sunday that kept its sun. By next week, you’ll be saying xia zhou without a second thought.
Found this useful? Share it with your friends, and come back to it whenever you need a quick refresher. For more of the language, culture, and everyday life behind modern China, the Stellar Chinese newsletter sign-up is on this page.