Where Dragons Roam

Chinese, Japanese, and Korean all appear to use the Sino character “月” (yuè) as their root word for the term ‘month’ as in months of the year. This character is originally a pictographic representation of a moon and is related in meaning to the moon or lunar cycle. Unlike many western calendars and time-tracking systems, Asia often based their time-keeping on the cycle of a moon as it changed through its phases. Consequently, one month for them would be the completion of one lunar cycle (which is around 29 days).

1. MONTH
2. CHINESE
3. JAPANESE
4. KOREAN

Although rooted in the same concept and character, each of the three languages pronounces the term differently and Korea uses Hangul which is a phonetic writing system rather than the ancient pictographs Kanji and Chinese are grounded in.

MONTH

Chinese

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Japanese

月 is usually pronounced as がつ (Gatsu) when combined with other characters in a word. When standing alone, it is usually pronounced as げつ (Getsu)

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Korean

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All three languages appear to generally create the name of each month by combining the number with the term for month:

Number + Month

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CHINESE

Emphasis in pronunciation is on the number, not the “yuè“

Chinese	Romanized	English
一月	yī yuè	January
二月	èr yuè	February
三月	sān yuè	March
四月	sì yuè	April
五月	wǔ yuè	May
六月	liù yuè	June
七月	qī yuè	July
八月	bā yuè	August
九月	jiǔ yuè	September
十月	shí yuè	October
十一月	shí yī yuè (10 + 1)	November
十二月	shí èr yuè (10 + 2)	December

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JAPANESE

Both Kanji and Hiragana use the template “Number + Month” and the pronunciation is the same. They just use different characters (月 for Kanji / がつ for Hiragana . . . both pronounced “gat-su”).

Emphasis in pronunciation is on the number, not the “gat-su”

It is helpful to note some of the Chinese pronunciation is similar in some of the numbers (e.g., the ‘chi’ in seven and ‘san’ is just the same in both languages).

Kanji1	Hiragana	Romanized	English
一月	いちがつ	ichigatsu	January
二月	にがつ	nigatsu	February
三月	さんがつ	sangatsu	March
四月	しがつ	shigatsu2	April
五月	ごがつ	gogatsu	May
六月	ろくがつ	rokugatsu	June
七月	しちがつ	shichigatsu3	July
八月	はちがつ	hachigatsu	August
九月	くがつ	kugatsu4	September
十月	じゅうがつ	juugatsu	October
十一月	じゅういちがつ	juuichigatsu (10 + 1)	November
十二月	じゅうにがつ	juunigatsu (10 + 2)	December

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KOREAN

Korea has two separate numbering systems, but uses the “Sino-Korean” in their months. Consequently, there is often a similar pronunciation between the Korean-Chinese or Korean-Japanese numbers here. For example, ‘go’ and ‘o’ for 5 and ‘san’ and ‘sam’ for 3.

Emphasis in pronunciation is on the number, not the “yuè“

Korean	Romanized	English
일월	ilwol	January
이월	iwol	February
삼월	samwol	March
사월	sawol	April
오월	owol	May
유월	yuwol5	June
칠월	chilwol	July
팔월	palwol	August
구월	guwol	September
시월	shiwol	October
십일월	shipilwol (10 + 1)	November
십이월	shipiwol (10 + 2)	December

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1. Although spelled differently, the Kanji and Hiragana appear to be pronounced the same way. ↩︎
2. Uses “Shi” (Sino pronunciation of ‘Shi’), not “Yon” ↩︎
3. Uses “Shichi” (Sino pronunciation of ‘qi’), not “Nana” ↩︎
4. Uses “Ku” (Sino pronunciation of ‘ju’), not “Kyuu” ↩︎
5. “유” (yu) instead of “육” (yuk) ↩︎

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