Portuguese Months: How to Say (and Write) the Months in Portuguese

Look, if you're learning Portuguese and need to make plans, book a trip to Brazil, or just tell someone when your birthday is, you're going to need to know the months of the year. The good news? They look a lot like English. The bad news? You're probably going to mess up one critical detail that native speakers notice immediately.

Let me explain.

The 12 Portuguese Months (And Why They're Easier Than You Think)

Here's the thing about Portuguese months—they're basically Latin with a Portuguese accent. If you know the English months, you already know 90% of this.

Portuguese is a Romance language, so these month names come from the same Latin roots as English. That's why "janeiro" and "January" look so similar—they both come from the Roman god Janus.

The Pronunciation Trick Nobody Tells You

The months are easy to recognize, but there's one sound that trips up most learners: that soft "j" in janeiro, junho, and julho.

It's not the hard "j" sound like in "jump." It's the sound you make in the middle of "measure" or "pleasure"—linguists call it /ʒ/. If you've studied French, it's the same sound as "je" in "je suis."

Another thing: that "r" in fevereiro? Don't roll it like Spanish. Tap it lightly with your tongue, like a soft flick. Native speakers pronounce it "feh-veh-RAY-roo" with the stress on that third syllable.

And yeah, the pronunciation differs between Brazilian and European Portuguese. In Brazil, you'll hear more open vowel sounds and a more melodic rhythm. In Portugal, they compress vowels more, making speech sound faster and more guttural. But the words themselves? Exactly the same.

The One Rule That Marks You as a Beginner

Here's what I meant earlier about that critical detail: Portuguese months are NOT capitalized.

In English, you write "January," "February," "March"—every month starts with a capital letter. In Portuguese? Nope. They're all lowercase: janeiro, fevereiro, março.

Portuguese treats month names as common nouns, not proper nouns. Same deal with days of the week and seasons—they all stay lowercase. The only exception is if a month starts a sentence or if you're talking about a specific event known by its date (like "O 11 de Setembro" for September 11th).

So when you write "Eu nasci em novembro" (I was born in November), that "n" stays lowercase. Write "Nasci em Novembro" and you're immediately marking yourself as a non-native speaker.

This is one of those details that language apps won't hammer home enough, but it matters. If you're writing dates, emails, or anything in Portuguese, get this right from day one.

How to Actually Form Dates in Portuguese

Knowing the months is great, but you also need to know how to use them. Portuguese date formation follows a specific pattern:

day + de + month + de + year

For example:

Notice that word "de"? It connects everything. And when you say "in month," you use the preposition "em":

One more thing: Portuguese uses cardinal numbers for dates—"dia cinco" (day five), not "fifth day." The only exception is the first of the month, where you say "primeiro" (first) instead of "um" (one).

So "June 1st" is "primeiro de junho," but "June 2nd" is just "dois de junho." Got it? Good.

If you want to dive deeper into Portuguese numbers, we've got a full guide on that too—it covers everything from cardinal to ordinal numbers and how to use them in real conversations.

Months and Gender (Because Portuguese Loves Making Things Complicated)

Every Portuguese month is masculine and takes the article "o":

You don't usually use the article when you're talking about events happening "in" a month (you just say "em janeiro"), but when the month is the subject of your sentence, it needs that "o": "O maio é bonito" (May is beautiful).

And when "em" (in) meets "o," they contract into "no":

This is just how Portuguese works—contractions everywhere. Get used to it.

The Real Way to Learn Portuguese Months

Here's the honest truth: reading a blog post about Portuguese months is useful for reference, but it won't make you remember them. You need to see these words in actual Portuguese content—TV shows, news articles, YouTube videos, conversations.

The pattern works like this across languages. We covered this same concept for French months, and the principle is identical: you remember vocabulary better when you encounter it in contexts that actually matter to you.

Think about it: you'll remember "agosto" way better after hearing it in a Brazilian podcast about the Olympics than from flashcard #47 in some generic deck. The emotional connection, the visual context, the natural audio—all of that helps the word stick.

This is why learning Portuguese takes different amounts of time for different people. It's not just about intelligence—it's about how much meaningful exposure you get to the language.

Quick Reference: Portuguese Month Abbreviations

When you're taking notes or need to write months quickly, Portuguese uses three-letter abbreviations:

jan, fev, mar, abr, mai, jun, jul, ago, set, out, nov, dez

Yeah, they stay lowercase too. And notice "setembro" shortens to "set" (not "sep"). That's because setembro comes from the Latin "septem" (seven)—it was the seventh month in the old Roman calendar before January and February were added.

Why You Should Actually Learn the Months (Beyond Survival Phrases)

Look, plenty of phrase books and apps will teach you "What's the date?" and call it a day. But if you actually want to have conversations in Portuguese, you need to use months naturally:

Brazilian seasons are flipped if you're coming from the Northern Hemisphere. December, janeiro, and fevereiro are summer months in Brazil. This kind of cultural context matters when you're actually using the language.

The months also connect to Portuguese-speaking culture in specific ways. Carnival (Carnaval) in Brazil typically falls in fevereiro. Portuguese Independence Day is September 7th (sete de setembro). These aren't just calendar facts—they're part of understanding how Portuguese speakers think about time and tradition.

Anyway, if you want to actually use Portuguese months in real conversations (not just recognize them in textbooks), you need to hear them in authentic Portuguese content. That's where Migaku comes in.

Our browser extension lets you watch Portuguese Netflix shows, YouTube videos, or read Portuguese articles with instant word lookups. When you see "em julho" in a sentence about summer vacation plans, you can click it, see what it means, and turn it into a flashcard with the full sentence, a screenshot, and native audio—all automatically.

You learn the months naturally, in context, exactly how they're actually used by Portuguese speakers. No drilling "janeiro = January" a hundred times. Just real content that you're interested in, with the tools to actually learn from it.

We support both Brazilian and European Portuguese content, so you can learn from whatever you're actually planning to watch or read anyway. There's a 10-day free trial if you want to check it out.

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