Months of the Year in German

Saying in January, and writing a date

For a month, use im: im Januar means in January. The same im works for seasons, so im Sommer is in summer.

Dates are written day first: 3.5.2026 is the third of May, not the fifth of March.

Spoken dates use an ordinal with am: am dritten Mai. The written form keeps a full stop after the number, as in am 3. Mai.

• Mein Geburtstag ist im April.My birthday is in April.
• Wir fahren im Sommer weg.We travel in summer.

Capitalised, all masculine, and the Juni-Juli problem

Every month is a noun, so it is capitalised, and every month is masculine, der, because der Monat is. In practice the article is dropped most of the time: im Januar, not im dem Januar.

Juni and Juli sound almost identical on a bad phone line, so Germans say Juno and Julei when reading out a date. You will hear it in offices and at the doctor's; nobody writes it.

Which months belong to which season

Frühling is March, April and May; Sommer is June, July and August; Herbst is September, October and November; Winter is December, January and February. Frühjahr is another word for spring and means exactly the same.

All four seasons are masculine too, and take im: im Frühling, im Sommer, im Herbst, im Winter.

The ordinal numbers you need for dates

A spoken date uses an ordinal: am dritten Mai, on the third of May. Ordinals add -te to the number up to 19 and -ste from 20 upwards, and after am they all end in -ten or -sten.

Three are irregular: erste for 1st, dritte for 3rd, siebte for 7th. Written, an ordinal is the digit with a full stop: 3. Mai, and 03.05.2026 in a form.

• Ich habe am ersten Juni Geburtstag.My birthday is on the first of June.
• Wir fahren am siebten August.We travel on the seventh of August.
• Der Termin ist am zwanzigsten März.The appointment is on the twentieth of March.