五月 – What is May in Japanese?

May in Japanese is fairly easy to remember. Basically, it is just the number five added to the Kanji for moon. I’ll explain more below.

What is May in Japanese

May in Japanese is 5月ごがつor in Roman Characters, gogatsu. Basically, in order to say May in Japanese, just know the number five and the character for moon. 5 in Japanese is go or the character 五. So you can also write May as 五月 in Japanese. This is pretty much how all the months in Japanese work.

月 – Moon in Japanese and Types of Moons

japaneseuniverse.com

The Old way to say May in Japanese

Just as a bonus there is an old word for May in Japanese. It is 皐月さつき. This word was used in the old Japanese calendar.

Putting it all Together

So gogatsu is May in Japanese. You can write it as the following:

• ５月
• 五月

Or the traditional word is 皐月.

Reference

• 月 (暦) – Wikipedia (Japanese)