Japanese Months and Dates: A Simple Beginner Guide
Japanese months and dates are built from numbers. A month is a number plus gatsu (月), so March is sangatsu, "three month". A day of the month is usually a number plus nichi (日), but the first ten days and a few others have their own names. Dates are written year, month, day.
What are the months of the year in Japanese?
There are no special names to learn. Take the number from 1 to 12 and add gatsu. If you already know how to count, you know most of the months. Our guide to Japanese numbers from 1 to 100 covers the numbers themselves.
| English | Japanese | Romaji |
|---|---|---|
| January | 一月 | ichigatsu |
| February | 二月 | nigatsu |
| March | 三月 | sangatsu |
| April | 四月 | shigatsu |
| May | 五月 | gogatsu |
| June | 六月 | rokugatsu |
| July | 七月 | shichigatsu |
| August | 八月 | hachigatsu |
| September | 九月 | kugatsu |
| October | 十月 | jūgatsu |
| November | 十一月 | jūichigatsu |
| December | 十二月 | jūnigatsu |
Three months catch most learners out, because the number has more than one reading and only one is used here.
- April is shigatsu, not yongatsu.
- July is shichigatsu, not nanagatsu.
- September is kugatsu, not kyūgatsu.
To ask which month it is, use nangatsu (何月, which month).
How do you say the days of the month in Japanese?
This is the harder part. Most days follow the simple rule: number plus nichi. The 11th is jūichinichi (十一日), the 15th is jūgonichi (十五日) and the 30th is sanjūnichi (三十日). The 17th and 27th use shichi (jūshichinichi, nijūshichinichi), and the 19th and 29th use ku (jūkunichi, nijūkunichi).
The days below are irregular. Most of them come from the older Japanese way of counting, so they sound quite different from the usual numbers.
| Day | Kanji | Kana | Romaji |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | 一日 | ついたち | tsuitachi |
| 2nd | 二日 | ふつか | futsuka |
| 3rd | 三日 | みっか | mikka |
| 4th | 四日 | よっか | yokka |
| 5th | 五日 | いつか | itsuka |
| 6th | 六日 | むいか | muika |
| 7th | 七日 | なのか | nanoka |
| 8th | 八日 | ようか | yōka |
| 9th | 九日 | ここのか | kokonoka |
| 10th | 十日 | とおか | tōka |
| 14th | 十四日 | じゅうよっか | jūyokka |
| 20th | 二十日 | はつか | hatsuka |
| 24th | 二十四日 | にじゅうよっか | nijūyokka |
A few tips that help:
- Days 2 to 10 end in ka, and the same words also count days. Futsuka means the 2nd, and also two days.
- The 1st is different. Tsuitachi is only a date. One day, as a length of time, is ichinichi.
- Any day with a 4 in it uses yokka, so the 14th and 24th are jūyokka and nijūyokka.
- The 20th, hatsuka, has to be learned on its own.
What is the Japanese date format?
Japanese dates go from the largest unit to the smallest: year (年, nen), month (月, gatsu), day (日, nichi). Today is written like this.
2026年10月24日
Nisen nijūroku nen jūgatsu nijūyokka.
24 October 2026.
In everyday writing the numbers are usually Arabic numerals, as above. Shorter forms such as 2026/10/24 are common too. Both styles keep the same year, month, day order, which helps if you are used to day, month, year.
How do you ask and give the date?
Two sentences cover most beginner situations.
今日は何月何日ですか。
Kyō wa nangatsu nannichi desu ka.
What is the date today?
誕生日は四月三日です。
Tanjōbi wa shigatsu mikka desu.
My birthday is 3 April.
Days of the week are a separate set of words, and they are worth learning after the dates.
How LanguaCards helps with dates
The irregular days stick best when you hear them often. In LanguaCards, Japanese words are flashcards with audio, in a female or male voice, grouped by JLPT level from N5 to N1. Romaji is shown under the Japanese, and you can switch it off when you are ready. Reviews bring words like yokka and hatsuka back before you would forget them, and you can make your own pack of the dates you find tricky. You can try everything free for the first 24 hours, after which Free gives a set number of cards a day. Pro has unlimited learning and every pack, and monthly and yearly plans come with a 7-day free trial. There are no ads.