星期几？
Xīngqī jǐ? — Days of the Week
Another place where Chinese refuses to invent new words: Monday is simply “week one.” Students who can count to seven can already name every day — and then learn to say what they do on each of them.
Seven days, almost no new vocabulary
星期一 Monday — “week one” ·
星期二 Tuesday ·
星期三 Wednesday
星期四 Thursday ·
星期五 Friday ·
星期六 Saturday
The one exception: Sunday is 星期天 — “week sky” — not 星期七. It’s the only day you have to learn separately.
Unit objectives
- Name all seven days
- Answer 今天星期几？ — “What day is today?”
- Use 今天, 明天 and 昨天
- Say what they do on a given day
Key vocabulary
星期 天 今天 明天 昨天 周末 上课
Building a week
Week one to week six
Students work the pattern out themselves from three examples, then discover Sunday breaks it.
Yesterday, today, tomorrow
The three day-words, practised with a moving marker on a real wall calendar.
My week
A written weekly timetable in characters — what happens on each day, in the student’s own life.
Two calendars at once
China runs the ordinary Gregorian calendar for daily life, but festivals follow the lunar calendar — which is why Chinese New Year lands on a different date every year, somewhere between late January and late February, and why the Mid-Autumn Festival moves too. Most Chinese wall calendars print both systems side by side, one in large numerals and one in small characters underneath. Showing children a real one makes the double system click instantly.
Unit 4 progress check
A light, no-pressure way to see what’s sticking:
- Can your child say today’s day in Chinese?
- Do they remember Sunday is the odd one out?
- Can they say one thing they do on the weekend?
Asking “what day is it?” in Chinese every morning for a fortnight will do more than any worksheet.