Hello Everyone,

In today’s lesson we will see how to say months in Japanese.

Let’s go!

What month is it?

The word  月 ( がつ ) [gatsu] is the word meaning /month/ in Japanese.

Note: You may already have noticed the kanji 月 in the word 月曜日 ( げつようび ) [getsuyōbi] /Monday/. Most kanji have multiple readings according to the context they are used in. This kanji for instance is the kanji for the Moon ( つき ) [tsuki], which is also used in Monday – the Moon day – with the reading げつ [getsu] and in months with the reading がつ [gatsu], as months were aligned on lunar cycles in ancient times. Be cautious also not to mix the げつ [getsu] / がつ [gatsu] readings.

To ask “What month are we in?” in Japanese, we use similar structure as the one used to ask for time or day of week (click/press on a character to see its reading and meaning):

Months

Indicating months in Japanese is really easy: A month name in Japanese is the month number (using either Arabic numerals (1 to 12) or Japanese numerals (一 to 十二)) followed by 月 ( がつ ) [gatsu] /month/.

Therefore all you have to know is how to count from 1 to 12 in Japanese, and the word 月 ( がつ ) [gatsu] /month/:

一月	１月	いち がつ	ichi gatsu	January
二月	２月	に がつ	ni gatsu	February
三月	３月	さん がつ	san gatsu	March
四月	４月	し がつ	shi gatsu	April
五月	５月	ご がつ	go gatsu	May
六月	６月	ろく がつ	roku gatsu	June
七月	７月	しち がつ	shichi gatsu	July
八月	８月	はち がつ	hachi gatsu	August
九月	９月	く がつ	ku gatsu	September
十月	１０月	じゅう がつ	jū gatsu	October
十一月	１１月	じゅう いち がつ	jū ichi gatsu	November
十二月	１２月	じゅう に がつ	jū ni gatsu	December

Points to notice here are:

• 四 (4) in 四月 is pronounced し [shi], never よん [yon],
• Preferred pronunciation for 七 (7) in 七月 is しち [shichi], but なな [nana] is also an accepted reading,
• 九 (9) in 九月 is pronounced く [ku], never きゅう [kyū].

OK, let’s practice now.

Exercises

Find the English or Japanese translation (click/tap on Answer to see the answer):

That’s it for this lesson. Next time we will discover days of month.
Bye!
Stéphane

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