Months in Spanish: Names, Pronunciation, Dates and Seasons

The 12 months in Spanish

Three rules before anything else:

1. Lowercase, always. enero, not Enero. Spanish does not capitalise months, days of the week, languages or nationalities. Only at the start of a sentence.
2. All masculine. El enero pasado (last January), un abril frío (a cold April). You will rarely need the article, but when you do, it is el.
3. No abbreviation with a capital. Short forms are ene., feb., mar., abr., may., jun., jul., ago., sept. (or set.), oct., nov., dic., all lowercase.

How to pronounce the months in Spanish

The table gives the shape. These are the sounds that trip English speakers up, month by month.

enero. Three even syllables, stress on the middle: eh-NEH-ro. Not "en-AIR-oh". The first e is a short "eh" as in "bed". The single r is a tap of the tongue, not the English "r".

febrero. Stress on the middle: feh-BREH-ro. Two r's, both tapped. Do not slide into "feb-RAIR-o".

marzo. In Latin America the z is an s: MAR-so. In Spain the z is a "th" as in "think": MAR-tho. Both are correct; pick the one for where you are going.

abril. Stress on the last syllable: ah-BREEL. Words ending in a consonant other than n or s are stressed on the last syllable, and abril follows the rule. Learners usually say "AH-bril" and it sounds off.

mayo. Easy: MAH-yo, like "my-oh". In Argentina and Uruguay the y is a "sh": MAH-sho.

junio and julio. The Spanish j is a rough h from the back of the throat, so these start "hoo", not "joo". HOO-nyo and HOO-lyo. The "io" ending is one quick syllable, "yo", not "ee-oh".

agosto. Stress on the middle: ah-GOS-to. Hard g.

septiembre. sep-TYEM-breh. The "ie" is a glide, "yeh". Some speakers, especially in Spain and Argentina, drop the p: setiembre. Both spellings are accepted by the Real Academia.

octubre. ok-TOO-breh. Say the k.

noviembre. no-BYEM-breh. Spanish v is a b sound.

diciembre. dee-SYEM-breh in Latin America, dee-THYEM-breh in Spain. The c before i is an s or th sound, never a k.

All the -bre months (septiembre, octubre, noviembre, diciembre) end in a clear "breh", with the final e pronounced. English speakers tend to swallow it into "ber". Do not.

Where the months in Spanish come from

Spanish months come straight from Latin, which is why they are so close to English. Knowing the origin makes them nearly impossible to forget.

So the last four months are literally "seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth", left over from a calendar that started in March. If you know the Spanish numbers siete, ocho, nueve and diez, the -bre months are already in your head.

How to say the date in Spanish

This is where the months actually get used, and where the grammar differs from English.

The formula: el + number + de + month (+ de + year)

• el 5 de mayo (the 5th of May)
• el 25 de diciembre (December 25th)
• el 14 de febrero de 2026 (February 14th, 2026)

Three things to notice:

1. Cardinal numbers, not ordinal. English says "the fifth of May"; Spanish says "the five of May": el cinco de mayo. The only exception is the first of the month, which is usually el primero de (Latin America) or el uno de (Spain): el primero de enero / el uno de enero.
2. De between the number and the month, and again before the year. Never leave it out. "5 mayo" is wrong; "el 5 de mayo" is right.
3. Day before month, always. Spanish writes 5/5, 25/12, 14/2. If you write 2/14 for Valentine's Day, a Spanish speaker reads "the second day of the fourteenth month" and stops trusting you.

Asking the date

• ¿Qué fecha es hoy? (What's the date today?)
• ¿A cuántos estamos? (What's the date? Literally "at how many are we?", common in Spain)
• ¿Cuál es la fecha de hoy?

Answering

• Hoy es 3 de octubre. (Today is October 3rd.)
• Estamos a 3 de octubre. (Answer to "¿a cuántos estamos?")
• Es el 3 de octubre.

Note that after es or estamos a you can drop the article: "Hoy es 3 de octubre" and "Hoy es el 3 de octubre" are both fine. When the date is when something happens, keep the article: "La boda es el 3 de octubre."

Saying the year

Years are said as full numbers, not in pairs like English. 2026 is "dos mil veintiséis", never "veinte veintiséis". 1999 is "mil novecientos noventa y nueve".

Full dates with the day of the week

• el lunes 3 de octubre de 2026
• Nací el martes 12 de abril de 1994. (I was born on Tuesday, April 12th, 1994.)

In, during, at: prepositions with months in Spanish

en + month = in (a month)

• Mi cumpleaños es en marzo. (My birthday is in March.)
• Vamos a España en agosto. (We're going to Spain in August.)
• En diciembre hace frío. (It's cold in December.)

This is the one place where a preposition IS used with a time word, unlike days of the week. "En enero" is correct; "en lunes" is not.

No preposition with a full date

• Llegamos el 10 de julio. (We arrive on July 10th.) Not "en el 10 de julio".

Other useful patterns

The seasons in Spanish

The months come with seasons, and here is the detail most guides skip: half the Spanish-speaking world is in the southern hemisphere, where the seasons are flipped.

So Christmas in Buenos Aires is a summer beach holiday, and "las vacaciones de verano" (summer holidays) in Argentina and Chile fall in January and February. If an Argentine tells you they went skiing en julio, they are not confused.

Seasons take en, like months: en verano, en invierno. They also take the article when they are the subject: El verano es mi estación favorita. (Summer is my favourite season.) Near the equator, in places like Colombia, Ecuador and much of Central America, people talk about la temporada de lluvias (rainy season) and la temporada seca (dry season) more than the four seasons.

Phrases with months you will actually use

Birthdays

• ¿Cuándo es tu cumpleaños? (When is your birthday?)
• Mi cumpleaños es el 8 de marzo. (My birthday is March 8th.)
• Cumplo años en abril. (My birthday is in April. Literally "I complete years in April".)
• Nací en 1995. / Nací el 20 de mayo de 1995. (I was born in 1995 / on May 20th, 1995.)
• ¡Feliz cumpleaños! (Happy birthday!)

Holidays and events

• La Navidad es el 25 de diciembre. (Christmas is December 25th.)
• Nochebuena es el 24 de diciembre. (Christmas Eve.)
• Nochevieja es el 31 de diciembre. (New Year's Eve.)
• Año Nuevo es el primero de enero. (New Year's Day.)
• El Día de los Muertos es el 1 y 2 de noviembre. (Day of the Dead, Mexico.)
• El Día de Reyes es el 6 de enero. (Three Kings' Day, when children in Spain traditionally get their presents.)
• La Semana Santa es en marzo o abril. (Holy Week, the biggest holiday of the year in much of the Spanish-speaking world.)
• El Cinco de Mayo. (A regional Mexican holiday that is a much bigger deal in the United States than in Mexico.)

Bookings and plans

• Quiero reservar para el 12 de julio. (I'd like to book for July 12th.)
• ¿Tienen habitaciones en agosto? (Do you have rooms in August?)
• La reunión es el 3 de febrero a las diez. (The meeting is February 3rd at ten.)
• El plazo termina a finales de mes. (The deadline is at the end of the month.)
• Mi contrato empieza en septiembre. (My contract starts in September.)
• ¿Qué haces en Navidad? (What are you doing at Christmas?)

Weather by month

• En enero hace mucho frío en Madrid. (It's very cold in Madrid in January.)
• En agosto hace un calor terrible. (It's terribly hot in August.)
• Llueve mucho en octubre. (It rains a lot in October.)

Abbreviations for the months in Spanish

The ones that catch English speakers: ene. (not "jan."), abr. (not "apr."), ago. (not "aug.") and dic. (not "dec."). If you see "12 ago" on a Spanish receipt, that is August 12th, not "twelve days ago".

How to memorise the months in Spanish

Most of the work is already done because of the Latin roots. The remaining traps are the four months that do not look like English: enero, marzo, mayo and agosto, and the two that sound different because of the j: junio and julio.

• Group them. The -bre four (septiembre, octubre, noviembre, diciembre) share an ending, and they are the seventh to tenth Roman months, so they are numbered in your head already. The j pair (junio, julio) share a sound. That leaves six to memorise cold, and four of them (febrero, abril, agosto) are obvious.
• Say them as a chant. enero, febrero, marzo, abril / mayo, junio, julio, agosto / septiembre, octubre, noviembre, diciembre. Three lines of four, said out loud ten times.
• Attach a date to each one. Your birthday, a friend's birthday, the holiday you are saving for. "Mi cumpleaños es en marzo. Vamos a México en noviembre." Personal dates stick.
• Switch your phone's calendar to Spanish for a month. Every notification becomes a flashcard.

Common mistakes with the months in Spanish

• Capitalising them. It is enero, not Enero. This is the mistake you will keep making longest, because English trains you to do it.
• Writing the date month first. 3/10 in Spanish is the 3rd of October, not March 10th.
• Using ordinal numbers for dates. "El quinto de mayo" is wrong. It is el cinco de mayo. Only the first of the month takes primero (or uno).
• Dropping the de. "El 5 mayo" is wrong; "el 5 de mayo" is right.
• Saying the year in pairs. 2026 is dos mil veintiséis. There is no "twenty twenty-six" in Spanish.
• Pronouncing junio and julio with an English J. They start with a throaty h sound.
• Stressing abril on the first syllable. It is ah-BREEL.
• Swallowing the final e of the -bre months. Sep-TYEM-breh, with the e.
• Assuming the seasons match yours. If you are talking to someone in Argentina, Chile or Uruguay, their summer is December to March.

Say them out loud, then use them for real

You now have all twelve months, the dates, the seasons and the prepositions. That is the easy half. The hard half is being able to say "el veintitrés de septiembre de dos mil veintiséis" without stopping to think, when someone at a hotel desk asks for your check-out date and there is a queue behind you.

Start today:

1. Say the twelve months in order, out loud, five times, with the stress in the right place.
2. Say your birthday, today's date and a date you are planning for, as full dates with the day of the week.
3. Say the four seasons and which months they cover where you live.
4. Then practise with something that listens and corrects. SPAIKING's AI speaking partner will ask for dates, bookings and birthdays in real conversation and fix the j in junio, the stress in abril and the swallowed e in noviembre while you talk. That is what turns a vocabulary list into a date you can give under pressure.