Seasons in Spanish: names, rules and when they start

The four seasons in Spanish

The pronunciation column uses English sounds, with the stressed syllable in capitals. The listen button gives you the real thing.

The word for “season” is la estación, plural las estaciones: the same word as a railway station. The full phrase is las estaciones del año.

Three sounds are worth a minute with English-speaking pupils.

The v in verano, primavera and invierno is not the English v. Spanish makes it with both lips, like a soft b, so verano starts almost like “berano”.

The ñ in otoño is the “ny” of “canyon”. The little tilde is not decoration: without it, the word is misspelt and the sound changes.

The r in primavera and verano is a single quick tap of the tongue, close to the tt in an American “butter”. All four words are stressed on the second-to-last syllable, so none of them needs a written accent.

Gender, articles and prepositions

1. Lower case. Seasons take no capital letter in Spanish, except at the start of a sentence: Me encanta el otoño.
2. One feminine, three masculine. la primavera, but el verano, el otoño, el invierno. Adjectives and demonstratives agree: esta primavera, este invierno, un verano muy caluroso.
3. “In spring” is en primavera. After en, the article is usually dropped: en primavera, en verano, en otoño, en invierno. En el verano is also correct and very common, especially in Latin America, so accept both.
4. Keep the article as a subject. El verano es mi estación favorita. Me gusta el invierno. Pupils who write “Me gusta verano” have dropped an article Spanish needs.
5. No preposition with “last” and “next”. el verano pasado (last summer), el próximo verano or el verano que viene (next summer), este otoño (this autumn).

To say what season it is, Spanish uses estar en: Estamos en otoño. (literally “we are in autumn”). The question is ¿En qué estación estamos?

When do the seasons start?

There are two ways of counting. In everyday Spanish, and in the Spanish media, the seasons follow the astronomical calendar: equinoxes (el equinoccio) and solstices (el solsticio). The exact day moves slightly from year to year, so these dates are approximate.

Meteorologists also use meteorological seasons, which start on the 1st of the month: 1 March, 1 June, 1 September and 1 December in the northern hemisphere. This is the system your pupils may know from UK weather forecasts.

Seasons across the Spanish-speaking world

South of the equator, the seasons are reversed. In Buenos Aires or Santiago de Chile, Christmas falls in summer and the long school holidays run from December to February. This is the best cultural hook of the topic: En Chile, la Navidad es en verano.

Near the equator, in Colombia, Central America or the Caribbean, the temperature hardly changes through the year. People talk instead about la estación seca (the dry season) and la estación de lluvias (the rainy season). In Central America and parts of Colombia and Venezuela, invierno is commonly used for the rainy season and verano for the dry season, whatever the calendar says. Worth knowing before a pupil with family in Honduras corrects you.

Words that go with the seasons

• la primavera: las flores (flowers), llueve (it rains), hace buen tiempo (the weather is nice). Adjective: primaveral.
• el verano: la playa (the beach), las vacaciones (the holidays), hace calor (it’s hot). Adjectives: veraniego (everyday) or estival (formal).
• el otoño: las hojas (leaves), hace viento (it’s windy), la vuelta al cole (back to school, in Spain). Adjective: otoñal.
• el invierno: la nieve (snow), nieva (it snows), hace frío (it’s cold). Adjective: invernal.

One verb has no English equivalent: veranear, to spend the summer holidays somewhere. Veraneamos en la costa.

En invierno hace frío y a veces nieva.In winter it’s cold and sometimes it snows.

Mi estación favorita es el verano porque no hay clase.My favourite season is summer because there’s no school.

El otoño empieza en septiembre.Autumn starts in September.

El verano pasado fui a Galicia.Last summer I went to Galicia.

Season is not always estación. For sport, tourism or TV, Spanish uses la temporada: la temporada de fútbol, temporada alta (high season), la segunda temporada (series two).

Typical mistakes of English-speaking learners

• Capitals: “Verano” in the middle of a sentence, copied from the habit of capitalising months in English.
• Gender: “el primavera” or “este primavera”. Primavera ends in -a and is feminine; the other three are masculine.
• Missing article: “Me gusta invierno” instead of Me gusta el invierno.
• Season in the wrong sense: “la estación de fútbol” instead of la temporada de fútbol.
• Forgetting the tilde: “otono” for otoño.
• English sounds: a buzzing English v in verano and invierno, or an English r in primavera.

In class: the season in the date routine

The seasons are learnt in a lesson, but they only stick if pupils use them regularly. The simplest way is to fold the season into the date at the start of every lesson.

1. Display today’s date in figures only, for example 30/09.
2. Ask ¿Qué fecha es hoy? and let the class build the sentence aloud.
3. Add a second question: ¿En qué estación estamos? The class answers Estamos en otoño.
4. Reveal the complete written answer, so everyone can check lower case and gender.
5. On the days the season changes, ask the same question about Buenos Aires or Santiago. The surprise makes it memorable.

This is exactly what a daily date routine does at its highest level: the season becomes part of the sentence, every day, without extra teaching time.

Alongside the routine, try a class survey (¿Cuál es tu estación favorita? ¿Por qué?), a clothes-and-seasons sort (En invierno llevo un abrigo.), or a comparison of the school calendar in Chile and in the UK.

Adapting to your class

• A1Name the season: Estamos en otoño.
• A2Add the weather: En otoño hace viento y llueve.
• B1Habits and memories: El verano pasado fui a la playa., En invierno solía esquiar.
• B2Full date with season and week number: Hoy es miércoles, 30 de septiembre; estamos en otoño, en la semana 40.

At KS2, a seasons song and a picture for each season are enough. At KS3, insist on gender and the article with gustar. At GCSE, the seasons are a springboard for tenses: El verano pasado…, El próximo invierno voy a…

Frequently asked questions