Months in French: list, pronunciation and a classroom routine

The 12 months in French

In the pronunciation column, (n) marks a nasal vowel: air goes through the nose and the n itself is not pronounced. “zh” is the s in “measure”, and “uh” is the short vowel in “the”. French stresses the last syllable of a word only lightly, so keep every syllable even.

A few points for English speakers. The French r is made at the back of the throat, a little like a light gargle; it is never the English r. The final -re of septembre or octobre is very short, just a whisper of “uh”.

Juin and juillet are the classic pair to confuse, in both listening and speaking. Juin is one short nasal syllable; juillet has two syllables and ends in “yeh”.

Août is one syllable, never “a-oot”. Both “oo” and “oot” are heard in France and both are correct. Since the 1990 spelling reform, aout without the circumflex is also accepted, though the traditional spelling is still the more common.

Unlike in many French words, the final s of mars is pronounced, and so is the l of avril. The p of septembre is pronounced too, unlike the silent p of sept.

Three rules your pupils need

1. Lower case, always. Months take no capital in French, except at the start of a sentence: le 3 mai, not “le 3 Mai”. This is the most common written error from English speakers.
2. All months are masculine. un mois de mai pluvieux, juillet dernier. In everyday use, a month on its own takes no article.
3. “In July” is en juillet or au mois de juillet. Never “dans juillet”. Before a vowel, de is shortened: au mois d’avril, au mois d’août, au mois d’octobre.

Months are the same in every French-speaking country, from France and Belgium to Switzerland and Quebec. For regional differences, look instead at the numbers (septante, nonante) and at the days (la fin de semaine in Quebec).

Using the months in a sentence

A date in French needs the article le and no preposition at all: there is no “of” and no word for “on”.

Mon anniversaire, c’est le 12 mars.My birthday is on 12 March.

La rentrée, c’est en septembre.The new school year starts in September.

Il fait très chaud en août.It’s very hot in August.

The first of the month is le 1er mai, read le premier mai. From the 2nd onwards, French uses ordinary numbers: le 2 mai (deux), never “le deuxième mai”.

Pupils who also learn Spanish should note the contrast: Spanish says el 12 de marzo, French says le 12 mars, without de.

Other useful phrases: le mois dernier (last month), le mois prochain (next month), début juin (at the beginning of June), fin juin (at the end of June), mi-juin (in mid-June).

The seasons

• le printemps: spring, au printemps: in spring
• l’été: summer, en été: in summer
• l’automne: autumn, en automne: in autumn
• l’hiver: winter, en hiver: in winter

The odd one out is au printemps: the other three seasons begin with a vowel sound and take en.

Months in French culture

A few expressions give the months a cultural angle. On 1 April, French children try to stick a paper fish on someone’s back and shout Poisson d’avril !, the French April fool. A traditional proverb warns En avril, ne te découvre pas d’un fil ; en mai, fais ce qu’il te plaît: in April, don’t take off a single thread; in May, do as you please. And les grandes vacances, the long summer holiday, cover juillet and août, before la rentrée in early septembre.

Typical mistakes of English-speaking learners

• Capitals: “Janvier” mid-sentence, copied from English.
• “Dans janvier”: a calque of “in”. It is en janvier.
• Translating “on”: “sur le 5 mai” instead of le 5 mai.
• Ordinals: “le cinquième mai” for “the fifth of May”. Only the 1st takes an ordinal: le premier.
• Pronouncing every letter: “a-oot” for août, “joo-in” for juin.
• Mixing up juin and juillet, especially in listening tasks.
• “En printemps”: it is au printemps.

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, which takes about a minute.

1. Display today’s date in figures only, for example 12/03.
2. Ask Quelle est la date aujourd’hui ? and let the class build the sentence aloud.
3. Reveal the full written sentence, so pupils can check the lower case and the spelling.
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.

Two one-off activities work well alongside it. Birthday line-ups: pupils ask C’est quand, ton anniversaire ? and stand in order from janvier to décembre. Month dictation: say a month, pupils write it, then check accents (février, août, décembre) and lower case.

Adapting to your class

• A1The day and the date: Nous sommes le jeudi 12 mars.
• A2Add the year: … 2026.
• B1Yesterday and tomorrow: Hier, c’était…, demain, ce sera…
• B2Add the season and the week number, for example Nous sommes en automne, en semaine 40.

With KS2 pupils, a song or chant is enough at first. At KS3, insist on lower case, accents and en. At GCSE level, the months should be automatic so that attention can go to tenses: L’été dernier, je suis allé…, En août, je vais aller…

Frequently asked questions