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I'm learning days of the week and things like that.

I've read that 曜日 means "day of the week" which includes Saturday and Sunday,
when 曜 means "weekday" which is from Monday to Friday because related to work
days in many countries.

But I've read that days of the week can be written with both forms, for
example 日曜日 and 日曜 for Sunday ([What is the difference between 日曜日【にちようび】and
日曜【にちよう】?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/6368/what-is-the-
difference-
between-%E6%97%A5%E6%9B%9C%E6%97%A5-%E3%81%AB%E3%81%A1%E3%82%88%E3%81%86%E3%81%B3-and-%E6%97%A5%E6%9B%9C-%E3%81%AB%E3%81%A1%E3%82%88%E3%81%86)).

It seems that in Chinese, 曜 means "day of the week", and 曜日 is an obsolete
word meaning "shining, bright"
(<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%9B%9C%E6%97%A5#Chinese>), and writing
days like 日曜日 is obsolete, archaic.

Can you confirm that 曜日 and 曜 are used as "day of the week" and "weekday"
respectively, but makes no difference when prefixed with another kanji to say
the name of a day?

Plus if you have more information about this topic, I'd be glad to read you.
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word-choice chinese
曜日 and 曜 don't mean the same but xx曜日 and xx曜 are synonyms?
No, 曜 on its own does **not** mean weekday. Where did you read that it refers
to weekdays? The Japanese word for _weekday_ as opposed to _weekend/holiday_
is [平日](http://jisho.org/word/%E5%B9%B3%E6%97%A5).

I don't speak Chinese, but both ～曜日 and ～曜 are very common in modern Japanese.
There is another question with a good answer regarding the difference and the
etymology of 曜: [Difference between 月曜 and
月曜日](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/26004/5010)

* * *

**EDIT:** Here's the definition of the [kanji 曜 on **Japanese**
Wiktionary](https://ja.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%9B%9C):

>   1. 光が目立って輝くこと。  
>  Shininess and distinctness of light.
>   2. 光り輝く天体。  
>  A shining celestial body.
>   3. 天体を、日時のある周期に当てはめたもの。特に七曜に関するもの。  
>  Celestial bodies assigned to a certain cycle of day and time, especially,
> the ones related to [Seven
> Luminaries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_planet).
>

So 曜 doesn't mean _weekday_. The first two definitions are obsolete and all
the words containing 曜 in these senses are far over JLPT N1 level. You can
safely assume 曜 is a kanji related to the seven days of a week, but is not
used alone.
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answer