Counter For Months
Month Counter
counter
Alright, so this one's a bit weird. See that oddly small ヶ there? Well, together with 月 (month), it becomes a counter for months. You'll use this when you want to talk about a specific number of months, so not when you're saying January, February, etc.
Note that you'll run into different variants of this. While 一ヶ月 is the most common, you'll also encounter 一か月, 一カ月, and rarely 一箇月. Luckily, they're all read the same, just written differently. Speaking about reading, let's get to it.
The little ヶ might be slightly misleading, as you'll have to read this as か. The rest is easy though, as 月 just takes a normal on'yomi reading. And since we're not talking about specific months, that means it's just げつ, making this 〜かげつ.
一ヶ月
one month
数ヶ月
several months
何ヶ月
how many months
日本の学校の夏休みは一ヶ月しかありません。
Japanese schools only have one month of summer vacation.
これが出来上がるまでに数ヶ月かかりました。
It took several months to complete this.
赤ちゃん、今何ヶ月ですか？
How many months old is the baby?
うちの子は八ヶ月でハイハイをして、九ヶ月で歩き出しました。
My child started crawling at eight months and began walking at nine months.