This page lists Spanish words for months and explains basic rules for using them, such as (non-)capitalization, prepositions, and articles.
Spanish words for months
enero = January
febrero = February
marzo = March
abril = April
mayo = May
junio = June
julio = July
agosto = August
septiembre = September
octubre = October
noviembre = November
diciembre = December
Common mistakes
Spanish months are quite similar to the English ones, but not entirely. Make sure to avoid these common mistakes that English speakers often make with Spanish months:
- Don't forget the "i" in septiembre, noviembre, diciembre.
- The last four months all end with -re, not -er, unlike in English.
- December is diciembre, with and "i" after the "d", not deciembre.
- August is agosto – there is no "u" anywhere in the word.
Spanish months are not capitalized
By far the most common mistake is to start the months with uppercase letters.
Unlike English months, Spanish months are not capitalized, unless they come at the beginning of a sentence. This also applies to Spanish weekdays.
Prepositions with Spanish months
When saying that something happens in August, we use the preposition en:
Voy de vacaciones en agosto.
I go on vacation in August.
When talking about something that happens in August or belongs to the month of August, we use the preposition de. Let's say we go on two trips and have vacations both in July and August. To specify that we mean the August vacation (the vacation of August, not July), we say las vacaciones de agosto.
Voy de vacaciones en julio y agosto.
En julio voy a los Estados Unidos.
No tiene planes para las vacaciones de agosto.
I go on vacations in July and August.
In July I go to the United States.
I don't have plans for the August vacation.
Similarly, we use the preposition de when talking about a particular week or day of a month:
la primera semana de agosto = the first week of August
el primer día de agosto = the first day of August
In fact, we use de also when saying dates in Spanish. The 4th July in Spanish is:
el cuatro de julio
Articles before Spanish months
In most cases, we don't put any articles before the names of Spanish months.
El mes más frío del año es enero.
The coldest month of the year is January.
Note that there is no el or any other article before enero. However, there is an el before the word mes, which means month in Spanish. This is just like in English.
The Spanish word for month is el mes, plural los meses.
Let's sum up in Spanish:
Los meses del año son: enero, febrero, marzo, abril, mayo, junio, julio, agosto, septiembre, octubre, noviembre, diciembre.