Learn Spanish (Latin America): Hoy es el dos de mayo.

In Spanish, we use regular counting numbers for dates, like dos, tres, or veinte. The only exception is the first day of the month, where you must use the special word for first: el primero. For every other day, just use the normal number!

Why isn't the month mayo capitalized here?

In Spanish, months of the year and days of the week are always written in lowercase unless they appear at the very beginning of a sentence.

Why do we use es instead of está for today's date?

Even though the date changes every day, we use es (from the verb ser) to talk about dates and time. Stating the date is considered giving a basic, fixed fact on the calendar, which always takes ser.

Why is there an el right before the number dos?

In Spanish dates, you always use the masculine word el (the) before the number. You can think of it as a shortened version of el día dos (day two). Because the word día (day) is masculine, we use el.