IELTS Spelling · Days and months
Days and months in IELTS Listening
There are seven days and twelve months. Nineteen words in total, every one of which can be the answer to a question, and four of which people get wrong year after year.
The short answer
Learn nineteen words to the point where you type them without thinking. It is the smallest piece of homework in the whole test and it protects marks in every part of Listening, because appointments, opening hours, deadlines and start dates are what Part 1 and Part 2 are made of.
The four that cause the trouble
- Wednesday. Nobody pronounces the first d. Say it in your head as Wed-nes-day while you type, and the letter stops disappearing.
- February. Almost everyone says Feb-yoo-ary. There is an r after the b: Feb-ru-ary.
- Tuesday and Thursday. Spoken quickly they are close, and under pressure people write one for the other. Tuesday has ue; Thursday starts with Th and has an r.
- Saturday. Three syllables, not two: Sat-ur-day. The u gets dropped by people who say Satday.
The rest, in full
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December.
Two more things that trip people. January ends -uary, like February, not -ary. And August has no e.
Capital letters and short forms
Days and months are written with a capital letter in English. That is how they are normally written, so write them that way — it costs nothing and it removes a question you do not want to be asking yourself.
Do not abbreviate. Wed, Feb and Sept are shortcuts you use with yourself, and the answer box is not a place to take a shortcut. Write the whole word.
Listening for the date, not the day
A recording will often give both: we’re open Thursday the twelfth. Read the question before you commit. If it asks for a day, Thursday is the answer and 12 is a distraction; if it asks for a date, the reverse. On a single pass, knowing which one you are waiting for is worth more than hearing it twice.
Practise these
Nineteen words, dictated in the accent you choose, checked letter by letter. It takes a few minutes and it is the highest return on time in the whole trainer.
Practise days and months by dictation
The Spelling trainer says a word once, in the accent you pick, and checks what you typed letter by letter — then gives you back only the words you missed.
Open the Spelling trainer →Three days free opens every test — Listening, Reading, Writing and Spelling — plus Vocabulary and Grammar in the app.
Questions people ask
Do days and months need capital letters in IELTS answers?
Write them with a capital. That is how they are written in English, it is never penalised, and it saves you from wondering about it during the test.
Can I write Wed instead of Wednesday?
Write the full word. An abbreviation is a risk with no upside, and the word limit on screen counts Wednesday as one word anyway.
Which month is misspelt most?
February, because of the r almost nobody pronounces. January is second, because people write -ary instead of -uary.
The other five groups
- Numbers and dates — Phone numbers, prices, times, reference codes and the date — the Part 1 answers that are lost to a digit, not to English.
- Place names — Street, Road, Avenue, and the town name the speaker spells out letter by letter at exactly the wrong moment.
- Personal names — Surnames spelled aloud, hyphens, apostrophes, and the letters that sound the same at speed.
- Plurals — The missing s, the words that are already plural, and the gap that has to agree with the sentence around it.
- Double letters — Accommodation, necessary, committee, occurred — the words where the only question is how many of each letter.
And the whole picture, with the marking rule and the accents, is on the Spelling trainer page. The words themselves come out of the Listening tests, which run in the computer-delivered interface here.
The marking rule — "words with spelling errors in the Reading and Listening tests will be marked as incorrect" — is IDP’s own wording on How to improve your spelling and Common spelling mistakes, both checked 2 October 2026; the same pages say British and American spellings are both accepted as long as you stay consistent. "You will hear the recordings once only" is from the official IELTS Listening format page, checked 2 October 2026. The two minutes to check at the end of the computer-delivered test, and the fact that the screen has no spell-check, are per the British Council’s paper versus computer guidance, checked 2 October 2026. The six groups of words below are how this trainer organises practice, not an official list. IELTS Computer is not affiliated with IDP, British Council or Cambridge.