They say I’m old-fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast! – Dr. Seuss
There are twelve of these in a year, though luckily months are not twelve times harder. I’d say there’s only one “strange” thing about this one. After that, it’s pretty easy going, and practice will take care of the rest.
This Month, Last Month, Next Month
The specific words for this month, last month, and next month are very useful to know. Note the difference between “last month” and “last year,” though. Kind of confusing, right? The word for “last year” is a bit of an exception.
a 今月（こんげつ）＝ This Month
a 来月（らいげつ）＝ Next Month
a 先月（せんげつ）＝ Last Month
If you don’t know the meaning of any of these kanji look them up. Everything here makes a lot of sense. One thing to take note of is that the reading for 月 is げつ, not がつ. To make things confusing specific months will use がつ and these will use げつ. Not much you can do about that except practice, I’m afraid. Try to memorize these words before moving on.
Specific Months
In English, we name our months completely different things. Confusing! I mean, what is a February? In Japanese it’s a lot more straight forward. Months consist of a number plus 月 (month).
a １月（いちがつ）→ January
a ２月（にがつ）
a ３月（さんがつ）
a ４月（しがつ）*
a ５月（ごがつ）
a ６月（ろくがつ）
a ７月（しちがつ）*
a ８月（はちがつ）
a ９月（くがつ）*
a １０月（じゅうがつ）
a １１月（じゅういちがつ）
a １２月（じゅうにがつ）→ December
The ones worth noting have stars next to them. ４月 and ７月 both use the on’yomi reading of the number kanji (they usually use the kun’yomi alternate readings よん and なな, remember?). Months are an exception to this rule, so you’ll have to remember しがつ and しちがつ. ９月 is just the shorter “9″ word. Instead of きゅうがつ it’s くがつ. Really, if you say both out loud you can almost figure out why く is used. It just feels better to say, plain and simple.
It shouldn’t be too hard to learn the months, so long as you can count. Focus more on remembering the exceptions than anything else.
Number Of Months
Here’s where things get a little tricky. Have you ever seen a small katakana ヶ before? Well, you’re about to, ヶヶヶヶ！
With years, you learned that ３年間, for example, means “for three years.” With months, you can’t really do that as easily. If you said ３月, it gets confusing because months are named like this (３月 = March). To separate the number and the 月, there’s a little ヶ in there.
a ３ヶ月（さんかげつ）
Three months
a １ヶ月（いっかげつ）
One month
a ５ヶ月（ごかげつ）
Five months
Notice anything strange? The reading for the ヶ part is か, not け. This will make no sense so you’ll just have to get used to it. When you read these it’s か, even though you write け. Oh Japanese, you so funny. Now, if you want to talk about “for ____ months” you can pull from your knowledge of years. Add a 間 on the end.
a ３ヶ月間（さんかげつかん）
For three months
a １ヶ月間（いっかげつかん）
For one month
a ５ヶ月間（ごかげつかん）
For five months
So long as the whole ヶ月 fiasco made sense to you, this should be okay too. You’ll practice it on the next page more, though.