The days of the week in Thai all begin with the word wan (วัน, day): wan jan (วันจันทร์) is Monday, wan angkhan (วันอังคาร) Tuesday, wan put (วันพุธ) Wednesday, then Thursday, wan suk (วันศุกร์) Friday, wan sao (วันเสาร์) Saturday, and wan athit (วันอาทิตย์) Sunday. Learn "wan" plus seven short words and the week is yours.
There is a lovely twist, too: every day has a lucky color, and many Thais know their own birth-day color by heart.
The seven days
Each name is "wan" followed by a celestial body, borrowed from ancient astrology — the moon for Monday, Mars for Tuesday, Mercury for Wednesday, and so on down to the sun for Sunday.
| Day | Thai | Romanization | Lucky Color |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | วันจันทร์ | wan jan | yellow |
| Tuesday | วันอังคาร | wan angkhan | pink |
| Wednesday | วันพุธ | wan put | green |
| Thursday | วันพฤหัสบดี | wan pharuehat | orange |
| Friday | วันศุกร์ | wan suk | blue |
| Saturday | วันเสาร์ | wan sao | purple |
| Sunday | วันอาทิตย์ | wan athit | red |
Thursday is the one mouthful. The full word is wan pharuehatsabodee (วันพฤหัสบดี), but in everyday speech almost everyone shortens it to wan pharuehat (วันพฤหัส).
Why days are named for planets
Thai inherited this system from Indian astrology, where each day of the week is ruled by a heavenly body. Monday belongs to the moon (jan, จันทร์), Tuesday to Mars, Wednesday to Mercury, Thursday to Jupiter, Friday to Venus, Saturday to Saturn, and Sunday to the sun (athit, อาทิตย์).
You do not need the astrology to use the days — but it explains why the words look nothing like their English counterparts, and it makes them easier to remember once you know the pattern. Here is a bonus: athit (อาทิตย์) means both Sunday and the sun, and it doubles as the casual word for a "week," so "athit nee" (อาทิตย์นี้) is "this week."
Birth-day colors and why they matter
Each day's color is more than decoration. Traditionally, Thais wear their birth-day's color for luck, and you will still see people choose an outfit to match an auspicious day. Ask a Thai friend which day they were born on and many will name their color without pausing — it can quietly shape what they wear to a job interview, a wedding, or an important exam.
The late King Bhumibol was born on a Monday, whose color is yellow — which is why yellow shirts appear across the country on royal occasions. Queen Sirikit was born on a Friday, so blue carries the same significance. Color-coded loyalty runs deep here.
Today, tomorrow and this weekend
Once you have the days, these everyday time words let you actually make plans. All of them are worth memorizing on day one.
วันนี้
wan nee
today
พรุ่งนี้
prung nee
tomorrow
เมื่อวาน
meua wan
yesterday
เสาร์อาทิตย์
sao athit
the weekend
"Weekend" is literally sao athit (เสาร์อาทิตย์) — Saturday-Sunday glued together. To ask what day it is, you can say "wan nee wan arai?" (วันนี้วันอะไร), meaning "what day is today?"
Notice that sao (เสาร์, Saturday) and athit (อาทิตย์, Sunday) simply combine to name the weekend — a nice example of how Thai builds bigger ideas from small, familiar words.
Keep learning Thai
Seven days, seven colors, and a handful of time words go a surprisingly long way toward sounding at home in Thai. Practice them with audio and spaced repetition in the Pretalk app, and round out your everyday vocabulary with our free essential Thai phrases. If you want to name dates as well as days, our Thai numbers guide is the natural next step.
