Italian Dates: How to Say Il 14 Gennaio (A1)

🔍 In short. Italian dates follow one simple pattern: definite article il + the day as a cardinal number + the month + the year. So January 14th is il 14 gennaio, May 27th is il 27 maggio, and “I was born on March 23, 1990” is sono nato il 23 marzo 1990. There is only one exception: the first day of the month uses the ordinal primo instead of uno, so January 1st is il primo gennaio, never “l’uno gennaio”. The year is read as one long word: 2026 is duemilaventisei. To ask today’s date Italians often say Quanti ne abbiamo oggi? This A1 guide gives the format, the months, the “primo” exception, how to read years, and how dates look on official documents like a birth certificate.

Once you know the article il, the twelve months and the cardinal numbers, italian dates take five minutes to learn. The only tricky bit is il primo for the first of the month, and remembering that the year is one single word, no spaces.

The format of italian dates

Italian dates have one shape and you reuse it for every day of the year. The article il goes first, then the day as a plain cardinal number, then the month, then the year if you need it. No comma between any of the parts, the month always lowercase. So January 14th becomes il 14 gennaio, and if you add the year, il 14 gennaio 2026. Same shape for a birthday, a doctor’s appointment, a delivery date or a school holiday.

• Federico è nato il 14 gennaio.
  Federico was born on January 14th.
• La visita è il 12 giugno alle dieci.
  The appointment is on June 12th at ten.
• Alessandra è nata il 27 maggio 1991.
  Alessandra was born on May 27th, 1991.
• Il 7 aprile abbiamo un appuntamento dalla pediatra.
  On April 7th we have an appointment with the pediatrician.

Notice two things about italian dates. The day is a cardinal number (tre, sette, quattordici, ventisette), not an ordinal. Italian does not say “il terzo maggio” the way English says “the third of May”. And the month name stays lowercase: gennaio, not Gennaio, even at the start of a date written mid-sentence.

The twelve months

You cannot say italian dates without the twelve months. They are easy to learn because most of them resemble the English names, only with Italian endings and stress.

• gennaio, febbraio, marzo, aprile, maggio, giugno
  January, February, March, April, May, June
• luglio, agosto, settembre, ottobre, novembre, dicembre
  July, August, September, October, November, December

All twelve are masculine: il caldo agosto, il freddo dicembre. They never take a capital letter inside a sentence, only at the very beginning. Stress falls on the second-to-last syllable in most of them: gen-NA-io, feb-BRA-io, gi-U-gno, lu-GLI-o, ot-TO-bre, no-VEM-bre, di-CEM-bre. Three exceptions worth noticing: MAR-zo, A-prile, MAG-gio, all stressed earlier.

To say “in May” or “in September” Italian uses two patterns. With a bare month, the preposition is a or in: a maggio or in maggio, both correct, the first more common in speech. With a year attached, the pattern is nel maggio del 2024, or shorter nel maggio 2024: the month is preceded by nel and the year is not preceded by del if you keep it tight. For italian dates this small habit saves you from doubling articles.

The “primo” exception

There is only one irregular day in italian dates, and it is the first of the month. While every other day is a cardinal number (il due, il tre, il quattro), the first uses the ordinal primo. So you say il primo gennaio, never l’uno gennaio. From the second of the month onwards you switch back to cardinals: il due gennaio, il tre gennaio, il ventisette gennaio.

• Il primo gennaio Bologna è silenziosa: niente macchine sotto i portici.
  On January 1st Bologna is silent: no cars under the porticoes.
• Festeggiamo l’anniversario il primo ottobre.
  We celebrate our anniversary on October 1st.
• La pediatra non riceve il primo del mese.
  The pediatrician does not see patients on the first of the month.
• Federico ha cominciato il nuovo lavoro il primo maggio.
  Federico started his new job on May 1st.

On paper you often see the shortcut il 1° gennaio, with the little circle for the ordinal. It is read out loud exactly as il primo gennaio. Writing il 1 gennaio without the circle is widely accepted in informal contexts, but the spoken form remains primo. This is the only ordinal in italian dates: everything else stays cardinal.

Why italian dates need “il”

English drops the article in front of a date (“on April 7th we left”), Italian does not. Italian dates always carry the masculine singular definite article il, because the day is a noun. If you say quattordici gennaio without the article, an Italian friend will hear the gap immediately. The article is what tells the listener you are giving a date and not a quantity.

• Ci vediamo il 14 gennaio.
  See you on January 14th.
• L’appuntamento è il 12 giugno.
  The appointment is on June 12th.
• Alessandra parte il 3 agosto per Bologna.
  Alessandra leaves for Bologna on August 3rd.

The article also stays after the prepositions di, da, a, fino a, prima di, dopo, fused into the standard combined forms: dal 14 gennaio, fino al 27 maggio, prima del primo ottobre, dopo il 3 marzo. So once you anchor italian dates with il, the prepositions naturally fuse with it (del, dal, al, nel), the same fusion you already use with any other masculine noun.

Reading the year: duemilaventisei

One of the things that surprises English speakers about italian dates is how Italians read the year. English splits 1990 into “nineteen ninety” and 2026 into “twenty twenty-six”. Italian does not split: the year is one long cardinal number, written and pronounced as a single word.

• 1990 = millenovecentonovanta
  nineteen ninety
• 1992 = millenovecentonovantadue
  nineteen ninety-two
• 2024 = duemilaventiquattro
  twenty twenty-four
• 2026 = duemilaventisei
  twenty twenty-six
• 1492 = millequattrocentonovantadue
  fourteen ninety-two

Notice that mille becomes mila when it is multiplied: duemila, never duemille. So 2026 is duemila + ventisei, all glued together: duemilaventisei. The same goes for millenovecento + the last two digits for any year of the twentieth century. When italian dates include the year, the year goes last and stands by itself, with no preposition between the month and the year: il 14 gennaio 1990, not “il 14 gennaio del 1990” (though “del” is heard and accepted in slower speech).

To say “in 1990” or “in 2026”, Italian fuses the article with in: nel 1990 (read nel millenovecentonovanta), nel 2026 (read nel duemilaventisei). The same applies to centuries and decades: negli anni Novanta (“in the nineties”), nel 1492 Cristoforo Colombo è arrivato in America.

“Sono nato il 23 marzo 1990”

The most common reason a learner needs italian dates at A1 is to give a birthday. The pattern is the verb nascere in the passato prossimo (sono nato if you are masculine, sono nata if you are feminine), the article il, the day as a cardinal, the month, and the year.

• Sono nato il 23 marzo 1990.
  I was born on March 23rd, 1990. (masculine speaker)
• Sono nata il 27 maggio 1991, a Bologna.
  I was born on May 27th, 1991, in Bologna. (feminine speaker)
• Federico è nato il 14 gennaio 1990 a Bologna.
  Federico was born on January 14th, 1990, in Bologna.
• Nostra figlia è nata il 3 marzo, sotto i portici di Bologna.
  Our daughter was born on March 3rd, under the porticoes of Bologna.
• Quando sei nato? Sono nato il primo dicembre.
  When were you born? I was born on December 1st.

The verb nascere takes essere as its auxiliary, so the past participle agrees: sono nato (masculine), sono nata (feminine), siamo nati (we, mixed or masculine), siamo nate (we, all feminine). The italian dates rule is the same in all cases: the article il stays, the day is cardinal except for il primo, the year is one long word.

Asking the date: quanti ne abbiamo?

Italians have two ways to ask about italian dates, and both come up daily. The textbook version is Qual è la data oggi?, literally “what is the date today?”, perfectly correct, always understood. The everyday spoken version is Quanti ne abbiamo oggi?, literally “how many do we have today?”, where the ne refers to the days of the month. It sounds odd word-for-word in English but it is the form you will hear in a café, a bakery, at the office. Both ways of asking belong inside italian dates as a topic.

• Quanti ne abbiamo oggi? Il 27.
  What’s today’s date? The 27th.
• Qual è la data oggi? Oggi è il 14 gennaio.
  What is today’s date? Today is January 14th.
• Federico, quanti ne abbiamo? Il primo. È il primo del mese.
  Federico, what’s the date? The first. It’s the first of the month.
• Oggi è il primo maggio, festa del lavoro.
  Today is May 1st, Labor Day.

Notice another little detail: to answer the date you do not need the month. If somebody just asked quanti ne abbiamo?, replying il ventisette or il primo is enough, because the month is understood from context. To give a fuller answer you add the month and, if relevant, the year. There is also a related question that English speakers often confuse with this one: Che giorno è oggi? can mean either “what day of the week is it?” (Monday, Tuesday) or “what date is it?”, depending on context. If you want to be sure you are asking about italian dates, not days of the week, use quanti ne abbiamo?

Dates on documents

Italian dates on official documents (a birth certificate, an ID, a tax form, a school registration) follow the same shape, with the day as a number, the month as a number or as a word, and the four-digit year. The Italian order is always day-month-year, not the American month-day-year, so 03/05/2026 means May 3rd, not March 5th.

• Bologna, 27 maggio 2026
  Bologna, May 27th, 2026 (heading on a letter)
• Data di nascita: 14/01/1990
  Date of birth: 14/01/1990 (January 14th, 1990)
• Data e luogo di nascita: 3 marzo 2024, Bologna
  Date and place of birth: March 3rd, 2024, Bologna
• Scadenza: 31/12/2030
  Expiry: 31/12/2030 (December 31st, 2030)

One curiosity. In older letters and on some legal documents you may still spot the form li 20 maggio 1998, with no accent and no il. That li is an archaic plural article that survived only in this fossil use. It feels old-fashioned today, but it is still legally valid. Modern italian dates simply use il, or no article at all when the date stands alone at the top of a letter (Bologna, 27 maggio 2026).

Three mistakes English speakers make

Three small slips give a learner away with italian dates. Each one is easy to spot and easy to fix, and once they are out of your italian dates, the rest of the system feels effortless.

• Saying il terzo maggio for “May 3rd”. Wrong: only the first uses the ordinal. The right form is il tre maggio.
• Saying l’uno gennaio for “January 1st”. Wrong: the first uses the ordinal primo. The right form is il primo gennaio.
• Splitting the year: millenovecento novanta with a space. Wrong: the year is always one single unbroken word, millenovecentonovanta.
• Dropping the article: 14 gennaio andiamo a Bologna. Wrong: italian dates always carry il, so it is il 14 gennaio andiamo a Bologna.
• Capitalising the month: il 14 Gennaio. Wrong inside a sentence: month names stay lowercase except at the start of a sentence (il 14 gennaio).

Cheat sheet

One table for the italian dates rules that actually trip A1 learners. Keep it open while you do the quiz.

Dialogue at the anagrafe in Bologna

Federico and Alessandra are at the anagrafe of Bologna (the city registry office) to file the birth declaration of their newborn daughter. The clerk asks for dates: the parents’ birthdays, the daughter’s date of birth, the appointment with the pediatrician. Listen for the italian dates in every line.

Count the italian dates in seven minutes at the anagrafe: il 3 marzo 2026 (the daughter’s birth), il 14 gennaio 1990 (Federico’s birthday), il 27 maggio 1991 (Alessandra’s birthday), il 27 maggio (today), Bologna, 27 maggio 2026 (the heading on the certificate), il 12 giugno (the pediatrician), il primo settembre (the nursery). Three patterns: day + month + year, day + month, and the lone il primo. That is the whole system at A1.

Mini-challenge

Test your understanding

Take the quiz below to test what you’ve learned about italian dates: the format, the months, the “primo” exception, how to read years, and how to answer the question quanti ne abbiamo?

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Frequently asked questions

Seven questions about italian dates come up in every A1 class. The answers below draw on classroom practice and on the Treccani entry data in the Vocabolario.

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Related guides

Three guides next to italian dates in the A1 basics cluster, plus the institutional reference.

• Italian Numbers: Cardinals, Ordinals, Dates and Age: the full numbers hub, with the cardinals and ordinals you need for dates.
• Italian Adjectives: agreement rules, useful because primo behaves like an adjective.
• Un bar italiano: A1 listening practice with everyday Italian, including time and dates.
• Treccani: data: institutional reference on Italian date conventions.