Czech/Months and dates

What's the Date?

The following is a handy formula for expressing the date in Czech:

den, datum měsíc rok = (Week-)day, date month year.

Dates in Czech are little-endian. You'll note the month is not capitalised as it typically is in English. Furthermore the genitive case is used, because you're talking about the eleventh day of September, and not the eleventh September. The date is usually written as a numeral immediately followed by a period (.), indicating that it is an ordinal number.

As a final note, in the Czech Republic, most people express the shorthand date: DD.MM.YYYY.

For Example...

• 5. října 1936 ("pátého října, devatenáct set třicet šest"): Václav Havel's birthdate.
• 1. ledna 1993 ("prvního ledna, devatenáct set devadesát tři"): the "Velvet Divorce" leads to the creation of the Czech Republic.

Months in Czech

Czech is one of several languages that do not use the Latin names for months which are common in western Europe. Here are the months of the year in Czech:

měsíc = month
Month		Locative "in ..."	Genitive "the 'nth' of ..."	Etymology
1	leden	v lednu	ledna	from led = ice
2	únor	v únoru	února	melting ice
3	březen	v březnu	března	month of birch
4	duben	v dubnu	dubna	month of oak
5	květen	v květnu	května	month of flowering
6	červen	v červnu	června	from červ = worm, or possibly červená = red
7	červenec	v červenci	července	month of ripening ("reddening") fruit
8	srpen	v srpnu	srpna	month of harvest, srp = sickle
9	září	v září	září	from zářit = to shine, i.e. when the sun shines, without warming
10	říjen	v říjnu	října	rutting season
11	listopad	v listopadu	listopadu	month of falling leaves, from list (leaf) + padat (to fall)
12	prosinec	v prosinci	prosince	probably from prasinec, the season when pigs (prasata) were slaughtered

Seasons

roční období = seasons of the year.

• jaro = spring.
• léto = summer.
• podzim = autumn.
• zima = winter.

See Also

• Wikipedia.
• Czech Days of the Week