Months in Spanish: list, pronunciation and a classroom routine

The 12 months in Spanish

The pronunciation column uses English sounds, with the stressed syllable in capitals. Treat it as a rough guide: the listen button gives you the real thing.

Four sounds deserve a minute of practice with English-speaking pupils.

The jota in junio and julio is a breathy h made at the back of the throat, like the ch in Scottish “loch”. It is never the English j of “June” and “July”, which is exactly what pupils will reach for.

The z, and the c before e or i, in marzo and diciembre sound like the th in “think” in most of Spain, and like an s in Latin America, the Canary Islands and parts of Andalusia. Both are correct. Pick one model for your own speech and accept either from pupils.

The single r in enero, febrero and octubre is one quick tap of the tongue, close to the tt in an American “butter”. It is neither the English r nor the long rolled rr.

Finally, Spanish vowels are short and pure. Mayo ends in a clean “oh”, not the “oh-oo” of English “go”, and the ending -bre is “breh”, never “ber”. A v, as in noviembre, is pronounced like a soft b.

Three rules your pupils need

1. Lower case, always. English capitalises months; Spanish does not, except at the start of a sentence: el 3 de mayo, not “el 3 de Mayo”. This is the most frequent written error from English speakers, so correct it every time.
2. All months are masculine. un enero muy frío, el próximo agosto. In everyday use, though, a month on its own takes no article.
3. “In July” is en julio. En julio vamos a la playa. You can also say en el mes de julio, which is more emphatic. El julio on its own is wrong.

The Real Academia Española also accepts the spelling setiembre, which is common in several Latin American countries. Septiembre remains the more widespread form and the one to teach, but don’t mark setiembre as a mistake.

Using the months in a sentence

A date uses de twice, and the article el does the job of English “on”. There is no separate word for “on”.

Mi cumpleaños es el 12 de marzo.My birthday is on 12 March.

El curso empieza en septiembre.The school year starts in September.

Hace mucho calor en agosto.It’s very hot in August.

The first of the month is el 1 de octubre, read uno in Spain and very often primero in Latin America. Both are accepted. From the 2nd onwards, Spanish always uses ordinary numbers: el 2 de mayo, never “el segundo de mayo”.

Other useful phrases: el mes pasado (last month), el mes que viene or el próximo mes (next month), a principios de junio (at the beginning of June), a finales de junio (at the end of June).

The seasons

• la primavera: spring
• el verano: summer
• el otoño: autumn
• el invierno: winter

A good cultural hook: in Argentina, Chile or Uruguay, diciembre is a summer month and Christmas is spent in the heat. Asking En Chile, ¿qué estación es en enero? makes them use the months and the seasons together, and think.

Typical mistakes of English-speaking learners

• Capitals: “Enero” in the middle of a sentence. English habit, hard to shift.
• English sounds: junio and julio said with an English j, marzo with a buzzing English z, septiembre ending in “-ber”.
• Mixing up June and July: a simple memory trick is that junio and June both contain an n, while julio and July both contain an l.
• Translating “on”: “en el 5 de mayo” instead of el 5 de mayo.
• Ordinals: “el quinto de mayo” for “the fifth of May”, a direct calque of spoken English. Only the 1st can take an ordinal.
• Forgetting the de: “el 5 mayo”. Both de are required.

In class: the date routine

The months are learnt in one lesson but only stick with repetition. The most effective approach is to say the date at the start of every lesson; it takes about a minute.

1. Display today’s date in figures only, with nothing else on the board, for example 12/03.
2. Ask ¿Qué fecha es hoy? and let the class build the sentence aloud, together or in pairs.
3. Reveal the full written sentence. That is the correction, for everyone at once, and pupils can check their capital letters.
4. Hand the routine to a different pupil each day: they ask the question and choose who answers.
5. Once a week, add a twist: whose birthday is this month? What was the date last Friday?

This is exactly what a daily routine does: short, predictable and repeated until it becomes automatic.

A few one-off activities work well alongside it. Birthday line-ups: pupils ask each other ¿Cuándo es tu cumpleaños? and stand in order from enero to diciembre without using English. Month dictation: say a month, pupils write it, then swap and check spelling and lower case.

Adapting to your class

• A1The day and the date: Hoy es jueves, 12 de marzo.
• A2Add the year: … de 2026.
• B1Yesterday and tomorrow: Ayer fue…, mañana será…
• B2Add the season and the week number, for example Estamos en otoño, en la semana 40.

With KS2 pupils, a month song or chant is enough at first; accuracy of spelling can come later. At KS3, insist on lower case and the double de. At GCSE level, the months should be fully automatic so that attention can go to tenses: El verano pasado fui a…, En agosto voy a ir a….

Frequently asked questions