How to read day in "日" or "一日"

Japanese Language
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When I want to say “it was a very hot day”, how do you read out the “日” or “一日” part? Can it be “hi”? Or “ichinichi”? Or are both possible?

Example sentences (I’m not sure if both are correct):
とても暑い一日でした
or maybe
とても暑い日でした

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In this case 一日 would be read as いちにち(“ichinichi”) and it would mean “the whole day” (ot sth close to that)

In that case it’s just a “day”, read as ひ (“hi”), and sentence means just “It was a hot day”.

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とてもあついいちにちでした
とてもあついひでした

一日 is usually read as いちにち (except when you’re referring to a date, where it’s read ついたち). There are some rare cases when it’s read as いちじつ, usually when it’s in conjunction with a set phrase; see １日 reading, yet again - Japanese Language Stack Exchange

日 on its own is usually read with the kunyomi ひ.

Deciding which reading that you should use will get easier as you hear other Japanese speakers talk. You will at some point automatically remember that one reading has a slightly different meaning/context than the others.

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Day would be read as ひ here rather than じつ or にち. It’s going to depend on the word how it’s read and there’s a lot to memorize, but 一日 is not the word to use here. It may be more appropriate to use 一日 as the first of the month or a span of time lasting one day, but a day on its own like in the sentence it’s a hot day would be 日 read as ひ. Hope that helps

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Thanks very much! So, if I understood correctly:
The second phrase seems to be the correct, or more natural one.
And the first phrase would be used to emphasize that the entire day was hot.

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Something like that. It would refer to the time you spent. 一日, when read いちにち, means “the time period of one day”.
For example, after spending the day with someone - like sightseeing, or going somewhere etc etc - at the end one could say 楽しい一日ありがとう.

So to wrap it up again - 暑い日 would just mean “a day when the weather is hot”, nothing less and nothing more, while 暑い一日 - “a day of hot weather” with a nuance of the time spent/passed (?).

Damn, I think I understand those differences (I base that on the usage seen in media), but I have really hard time expressing those concepts properly in English. Please excuse me :sweat_smile:

This is the best advice - to learn the nuances of different phrases by observing how they are being used in real life.

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