The twelve months in Spanish are enero (January), febrero (February), marzo (March), abril (April), mayo (May), junio (June), julio (July), agosto (August), septiembre (September), octubre (October), noviembre (November) and diciembre (December). Nine of the twelve look close enough to their English cousins to guess on sight; the ones to actually learn are enero, agosto, and the spelling of septiembre. Every month stays lowercase in the middle of a sentence, unlike English. Here is the full set with audio, plus how to say a specific month, a birthday, and a date.
The twelve months, with audio
These twelve are part of a wider time theme: Vocabcord's A1 Spanish pack carries 34 time-related phrases out of 625 total, and the months make up twelve of those 34, the rest split between the days of the week and words like hoy (today) and mañana (tomorrow). Tap the play button on any row to hear a month spoken.
| Spanish | English | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| Enero | January | January is cold. |
| Febrero | February | February has 28 days. |
| Marzo | March | March is windy. |
| Abril | April | April brings rain. |
| Mayo | May | May is my favorite month. |
| Junio | June | June starts the summer. |
| Julio | July | July is hot here. |
| Agosto | August | August is vacation time. |
| Septiembre | September | School begins in September. |
| Octubre | October | October leaves are red. |
| Noviembre | November | November feels long. |
| Diciembre | December | December is the last month. |
Nine months are close cognates of their English names, so marzo, abril, and octubre barely need memorizing. Three are worth drilling on their own: enero shares no root with January, agosto drops the English u, and septiembre keeps its extra p where English speakers often want to drop it.
Are months capitalized in Spanish?
No. A month name only takes a capital where any word would, at the start of a sentence or a title. Mid-sentence it stays lowercase: nació en abril (they were born in April), llego a finales de mayo (I arrive at the end of May). English capitalizes April and May as if they were proper names; Spanish treats them the same way it treats mes (month) itself, as an ordinary noun. The table above capitalizes each entry only because it opens a fresh row.
Saying a specific month: en, de, and a en
Most of the time a month follows en: en enero (in January), en diciembre (in December). To attach a month to a date, switch to de: el 3 de julio is the third of July, and a year appends a second de, el 3 de julio de 2026. A birthday takes the same frame as a date: mi cumpleaños es el 3 de julio is my birthday is the third of July, and ¿en qué mes naciste? asks what month someone was born in. One preposition to avoid: nobody puts el in front of a bare month, so en agosto is right and en el agosto is not.
Asking and answering 'what month is it'
The question is ¿En qué mes estamos? (literally, in what month are we?), and the plain answer drops the preposition: estamos en marzo (it's March / we're in March). A shorter version, ¿qué mes es?, works the same way. For a specific month rather than the current one, mayo on its own answers ¿en qué mes es tu cumpleaños? (what month is your birthday in) just as it does in English: the bare month name is a complete answer.
The days of the month reuse plain numbers
Spanish has no separate vocabulary for the days inside a month; it reuses the plain cardinal numbers. El cinco de agosto is the fifth of August, built from cinco (five) plus the month, and the same pattern covers every day from one to thirty-one. The single exception is the first of the month, which in Latin America is usually el primero (the first) rather than el uno, while Spain leans on el uno both ways. If those numbers from one to thirty-one still feel shaky, the Spanish numbers guide covers the full run from zero to a hundred, and the days of the week (a separate set from the months) live on the days of the week and months guide.
The same month, two different seasons
Spanish is spoken across both hemispheres, so a month name carries no fixed season. Enero sits in the coldest stretch of winter in Madrid and in the middle of summer in Buenos Aires; julio flips the same way. Vocabcord's own corpus example for julio reads aquí en julio hace mucho calor (July is hot here), and that aquí (here) is doing real work: without it, a Spanish sentence about a month says nothing about the weather on its own. If you're describing a month's weather, name the place or add aquí, the way the corpus example does.
Twelve words, twelve chances a year to hear them
A month name resurfaces on its own schedule: it comes back every year, at a birthday, a holiday, a flight booking. That natural spacing is close to ideal for memory, and Vocabcord builds on it rather than fighting it. Plug in your phone and one phrase plays out loud, drawn from a corpus graded A1 to C2 and spaced so a word returns before it fades, no session to remember and no app to open. Get Vocabcord on the App Store and let the months settle in a charge at a time.
Common questions
What are the months in Spanish?
enero (January), febrero (February), marzo (March), abril (April), mayo (May), junio (June), julio (July), agosto (August), septiembre (September), octubre (October), noviembre (November) and diciembre (December). All twelve stay lowercase in the middle of a sentence.
What is the month of May in Spanish?
Mayo. It is one of the closest cognates in the set, spelled and pronounced close to its English name. Used in a sentence: mayo es mi mes favorito means May is my favorite month.
Are months capitalized in Spanish?
No. A month stays lowercase mid-sentence, so marzo and mayo only take a capital when they open a sentence or a title. English capitalizes March and May; Spanish treats month names as ordinary nouns.
What are the days of the month in Spanish?
They reuse plain cardinal numbers. El cinco de agosto is the fifth of August, built from cinco (five), the same way for any day one through thirty-one. Latin America usually says el primero for the first of the month; Spain often says el uno.
How do you ask what month it is in Spanish?
¿En qué mes estamos? (what month are we in), answered with estamos en marzo (it's March). A shorter form, ¿qué mes es?, asks the same thing.
How do you say a birthday date in Spanish?
Mi cumpleaños es el plus the day, de, then the month: mi cumpleaños es el 3 de julio is my birthday is the third of July. Ask it with ¿en qué mes naciste? (what month were you born in).
Why doesn't a Spanish month name tell you the season?
Because Spanish is spoken on both sides of the equator. Enero is midwinter in Madrid and midsummer in Buenos Aires, so a sentence about a month needs a place attached, like the corpus example aquí en julio hace mucho calor (July is hot here), to say anything about weather.
