Planning a date with a German-speaking friend or romantic interest? Or perhaps you want to feel confident organizing meetings and travel plans in German-speaking countries? If so, knowing how to read and pronounce the months of the year in German will be key to your mastery of time vocabulary in the German language.
Learning the months of the year is an integral part of learning any language. And German is no different. But while other languages can be more challenging for English speakers, the German language is considered easy to learn for English speakers.
English, in fact, is a Germanic language, so English’s overall composition is actually quite similar to languages like German and Norwegian. So learning the German months will probably come quite easily to you as an English speaker. Consider this: Three of the twelve months are precisely the same! And many others only differ in one or two letters.
So no matter if you’re looking to visit Germany on a business trip or just love learning different languages, learning the German months, is very much worth it. You can also learn them together with your kids and turn education into a fun family-bonding activity.
Moreover, German people love it when someone learns their language, and your German colleagues, friends or family members will appreciate the effort as well.
How to say months in German
Just like the actual names of the months, the German word Monat is very similar to its English counterpart.
The way to pronounce Monat is moh-naht. Keep in mind that, unlike English, German uses der, die and das as definite articles (instead of the).
Monatuses the article der - der Monat. The plural form of Monat is die Monate moh-nah-te. Make sure to put a particular emphasis on the first syllable to improve your pronunciation.
Months of the year in German and English
Pronouncing German words can be a challenge. To make it as easy as possible for you, we’ll be using the German phonetic spelling for each month. As you might have already noticed, the phonetic spellings are underlined to ensure you don’t confuse them with regular words.
Once you have memorized the German months of the year and learnt how to say the months in German, you can finetune your pronunciation by listening to audio files or watching videos. We promise you will master die Monate in no time!
| English | German | Phonetic spelling | IPA |
| January | Januar | yah-noo-ahr | ˈjanuaːɐ̯ |
| February | Februar | fay-broo-ahr | ˈfeːbʁuaːɐ̯ |
| March | März | mehrts | mɛʁt͡s |
| April | April | ah-pril | aˈpʁɪl |
| May | Mai | my | maɪ̯ |
| June | Juni | yu-nee | ˈjuːni |
| July | Juli | yu-lee | ˈjuːli |
| August | August | ow-goost | aʊ̯ˈɡʊst |
| September | September | zehp-tehm-ber | zɛpˈtɛmbɐ |
| October | Oktober | ok-toh-ber | ɔkˈtoːbɐ |
| November | November | no-vehm-ber | noˈvɛmbɐ |
| December | Dezember | deh-tsem-ber | deˈt͡sɛmbɐ |
How to say the four seasons in German
Just like in English, the year (in German - das Jahr yahr) is divided into four seasons. Unlike the months, however, these are a bit trickier to learn as the German words for spring and autumn show no similarities to their English counterparts and can be quite hard to pronounce for beginners.
Before we dive into the seasons themselves, we should know the German word die Jahreszeit which is the German equivalent to the English term the season. Jahreszeit is pronounced as yah-res-tsait.
| English | German | Phonetic Spelling | IPA |
| Spring | Frühling | frew-ling | ˈfʁyːlɪŋ |
| Summer | Sommer | zom-mer | z̊ɔmːr̩ |
| Autumn | Herbst | hehrpst | hɛʁpst |
| Winter | Winter | vin-ter (pronounced just like in English) | ˈvɪntɐ |
Keep in mind, that all seasons use the article der - so it is der Frühling, der Sommer and so on.
