The seven days are ponedjeljak, utorak, srijeda, četvrtak, petak, subota, nedjelja; the months are the easy international ones (januar, februar, mart…). The only genuinely fiddly part is saying an actual date, because the month has to change its ending. I'll give you the whole set below, then untangle that one twist.
Published 18 May 2026
A student of mine once turned up to a lesson a full week early because she read utorak as "the 22nd" — she'd half-memorised the days and half-guessed. I loved her for it, but it's a good warning: dates are one of those small things that quietly wreck a plan if you skip them. So let's nail them properly, in an order that sticks.
Serbian and Montenegrin share the same week. The nice touch: several days are literally named by logic. Srijeda (Wednesday) comes from "middle", and petak (Friday) hides pet, the number five — the fifth day if you count from Monday.
| English | Serbian / Montenegrin | Rough sound |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | ponedjeljak | po-NE-dye-lyak |
| Tuesday | utorak | OO-to-rak |
| Wednesday | srijeda / sreda | SRYE-da |
| Thursday | četvrtak | CHET-vr-tak |
| Friday | petak | PE-tak |
| Saturday | subota | SOO-bo-ta |
| Sunday | nedjelja / nedelja | NE-dye-lya |
That srijeda vs sreda pair is the classic Montenegrin/Serbian split — the ijekavica "ije" versus the ekavica "e". Both are correct; you'll hear srijeda on the coast and sreda in Belgrade.
To say "on Monday", you just add u: u ponedjeljak. Want "every Monday"? ponedjeljkom. And danas (today), sutra (tomorrow) and juče/jučer (yesterday) are worth banking in the same breath.
Here's the part English speakers cheer for: the months are basically the ones you already know. If you've ever seen a European calendar, you can read these on sight.
| English | Serbian / Montenegrin |
|---|---|
| January | januar |
| February | februar |
| March | mart |
| April | april |
| May | maj |
| June | jun |
| July | jul |
| August | avgust |
| September | septembar |
| October | oktobar |
| November | novembar |
| December | decembar |
One heads-up for travellers: Croatian does not use these. Croatian keeps the old Slavic month names — siječanj, veljača, ožujak — which look nothing like the international set. If you're learning for Montenegro or Serbia, ignore those; you've got the easy version.
This is where it gets interesting, and where that early student went wrong. Dates use ordinal numbers (first, second, third…) and the month lands in the genitive case. In plain terms: the month name changes its ending to mean "of".
So "the first of May" is prvi maj as a bare label, but "on the first of May" becomes prvog maja — both words shift. A few to see the pattern:
If the genitive is new to you, don't force it here — it's a whole topic on its own, and I've walked through it gently in the genitive case, explained. For now, just notice that dates are one of its most common everyday jobs. And since the ordinals themselves lean on the plain numbers, it's worth having those solid first — that's what counting from 1 to 100 is for.
Try answering these out loud before you read on: What day is it today? When's your birthday? What's the date next Friday? Even fumbling through them beats re-reading a table five times — dates only stick once your mouth has said a few real ones.
Do Serbian and Montenegrin use different days? Same words, tiny spelling differences (srijeda/sreda, nedjelja/nedelja). Learn one and you've got both.
Why does the month change to maja? That's the genitive ending doing the work of English "of". Dates are one place cases are unavoidable — but also one place they're easy to drill.
Is nedjelja Sunday or "week"? Both, annoyingly. Context sorts it: u nedjelju is "on Sunday", sljedeće nedjelje tends to mean "next week". You'll feel the difference quickly.
Days and months are the perfect thing to practise the moment you learn them, because you use them literally every day. That's exactly how Gora teaches them — in real sentences with the genitive twist explained the second it shows up, and a patient fox to say the dates back to. Montenegrin's live now.