Anyone who plans to speak Spanish will need to refer to the day and date of some event. You may want to see if a memo or a newspaper edition is current. You may want to issue an invitation or specify the day and date of a meeting. Possibly you may even wake up some morning and say to no one in particular…

¿Hoy qué día es? — (Today) What day is it?

Hoy es lunes. — Today is Monday.
Hoy es martes. — Today is Tuesday
Hoy es miércoles. — Today is Wednesday
Hoy es jueves. — Today is Thursday
Hoy es viernes. — Today is Friday
Hoy es sábado. — Today is Saturday
Hoy es domingo. — Today is Sunday

Notice that in Spanish the days are not written with a capital letter as they are in English. This is also true for the months.

Both days and months take the masculine article el or un when an article is required. But you could say:

Estamos en enero. — We're in January (this is January).
Estamos en febrero. — This is February.

…and so on. These are non-specific utterances, treating months as though they were like seasons, or temporadas:

Estamos en verano. — We're in summer (this is summertime).
Estamos en invierno. — This is winter.
Estamos en primavera. — This is springtime.
Estamos en otoño. — This is fall.

If you mean to be specific about the date, you would ask:

¿En cuál fecha estamos? — On what date are we?

or…

¿Cuál es la fecha de hoy? — What is the date today?

The response requires additional grammatical particles.

Estamos a dos de abril. — We're on the second of April.

Unlike in English, all the days of the month except the first use cardinal or counting numbers. Only the first of the month is said in Spanish with the ordinal form.

el primero de abril — the first of April (April 1st)
el dos de abril — the second of April (April 2nd)
el tres de abril — the third of April (April 3rd)
.
.
.
el treinta de abril — April thirtieth (30th)

This is true for all the months.

Suppose the question is about a recurring event:

¿Cuándo vas a la lección de piano? — When do you go to your piano lesson?
Voy los lunes a las tres. — I go Mondays at three.

A one-time event:

Tengo una cita médica el cuatro de octubre. — I have a medical appointment on the 4th of October.
Tengo una cita médica el cuatro. — I have a medical appointment on the fourth.

Note—in the Spanish sentence above—that where English time expression may use the preposition “on”, no preposition is used in Spanish.

If you want to specify the year, use de:

Gabriel García Márquez nació en Colombia el seis de marzo de 1928. — Gabriel García Márquez was born in Colombia on March 6, 1928.

When you say a year in Spanish, you read out all the place values, so 1928 is:

mil novecientos veintiocho — one thousand nine hundred twenty-eight (we'd say: nineteen twenty-eight).

In other words, in Spanish—years—there is no grouping of digits into tens, as in English.

Finally, for today:

El siglo XXI (veintiuno) es el siglo actual. — The twenty-first century is the present century.

La inauguración de la administración actual tomó lugar el veinte de enero de dos mil nueve. — The inauguration of the present administration took place on January 20, 2009.

Next time we’ll talk about other aspects of time: seasons, the time of day, parts of the day…

Aprovéchense del tiempo. — Don’t waste time!

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There is one topic that people can always talk about–the weather. If you are learning Spanish you may want to prepare yourself for a casual weather conversation. You can get ready to ask and answer questions about how the weather is currently, or what the forecast–el pronóstico–says it will be. You may want to be able to excuse yourself from certain events on account of the weather. Perhaps you would like to know more about places where the weather is characteristically to your liking; that is, places that have a certain climate.

Our purpose here is to provide you with some useful terms and phrases you can put to use in conversational situations about the weather.

As a start, lets learn some expressions with the main weather verb: hacer ‘to make or do.’

Hace frío. — It's cold.
Hace calor. — It's hot.
Hace sol. — It's sunny.
Hace fresco. — It's cool.
Hace viento. — It's windy.
Hace buen tiempo. — It is good weather.
Hace mal tiempo. — It is bad weather.

Llover is the word for the verb ‘to rain’, and nevar means ‘to snow’. As in English these verbs are used impersonally.

Llueve. — It rains.
Nieva. — It snows.
Truena. (tronar) — It thunders.
Va a llover. — It's going to rain.
Va a nevar. — It's going to snow.

Some weather conditions can go with hay, an impersonal verb form related to haber ‘to be or exist.’

Hay nubes. — There are clouds.
Hay sol. — There is sun.
Hay llovizna. — There is drizzle.
Hay niebla. — There is fog.
Hay neblina. — There is low fog.
Hay brisa. — There is a breeze, light wind.
Hay relámpago. — There is lightning.

An ongoing condition may be communicated using the verb estar ‘to be (in a condition).’

Está nublado. — It is cloudy.
Está lloviendo. — It is raining.
Está nevando. — It is snowing.

Note that a verb you will not find in weather expressions is ser ‘to be.’ It is worth pointing that out as English weather expressions are formed around ‘is.’

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In the next Spanish ‘how to’ lesson–How’s the Weather? – in Spanish: part 2, we’ll see how some of the weather expressions work in conversational exchange.

When speaking a Spanish sentence, link all the words together to form a continuous sound. There are four rules to sentence linking that I’ll discuss now.

Note: Following the written lesson, there is a short video of examples, below.

1. A word ending in a consonant with the following word beginning in a vowel are pronounced together:

Carlos entiende sounds like Car-lo-sen-tien-de

2. The last vowel in a word is combined with a first vowel in the following word (three vowels combine together as well–see the lesson on Spanish vowels for an explanation):

tu escuela sounds like tues-cue-la
lluvia y nieve sounds like llu-viay-nie-ve

3. When one word ends and the next begins, with the same vowel, pronounce them a bit longer than the single vowel:

tiene eso sounds like tie-n e -so

4. Combine two of the same consonants to form one slightly longer sound:

¿tienes sueño? sounds like ¿tie-ne- s ue-ño?

In general, the degree of loudness–pitch–in a Spanish statement follows this rule: start low, raise higher on the first stressed syllable, return to original pitch on the last stressed syllable, then drop the pitch slightly at the end.

With that said, there is a wide variation in intonation between Spanish speaking countries and regions. While you’re learning how to speak Spanish, don’t worry about intonation too much…at first. Pay attention to Spanish speakers and you’ll get the hang of it.

Watch: Learn Spanish Sentence Rhythm Video

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Did you find this lesson on Spanish sentence rhythm and intonation helpful? Do you see an…ugh…error? Please leave a comment (or question)–I try to answer questions promptly.