Months and Days

 In this post, you'll see how to say every month of the year correctly, and also learn to say 'days of the month', like the 4th of October, for example.


*Never よんがつ , なながつ or きゅうがつ for April, July and September.

There are two ways to count in Japanese. The way we are all familiar with - with Japanese pronunication:

いち、に、さん、よん/し、ご、ろく、なな/しち、はち、きゅう/く、じゅう。

But this way of counting are just for figurative things such as age, the time, numbers.

The following way of counting is for saying quantities, such as a number of apples, for instance. The pnounciations are of Chinese origin.

ひとつ、ふたつ、みっつ、よっつ、いつつ、むっつ、ななつ、やっつ、ここのつ、とお。

So, it's not さん x apples, but みっつ x apples.

The numbers for this counter are written the same in Kanji as the one we're familiar with at first.


The same goes for the day of the month. Not in a sentence context like 'today is the 4th of October', but if you wanna talk about a day of the month in itself. Then, you'll say 'よっつか' (ka = 日 = day).

Now, if you wanna talk about the date in a sentence like 'today is the 4th of October', you say 'きょう　は　じゅうがつ　の　よっか　(written as 4日).

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