Korean Days and Months Chart (Free PDF)

Download the Chart

See also: Korean days of the week

How to Use the Chart

• Print it on one A4 sheet (on US Letter, choose "fit to page") and put it next to your calendar or desk, where you'll glance at it every day.
• Make it a 20-second morning habit: say today's full date and weekday out loud, then check yourself against the chart. On the day this page went up, that was 오늘은 10월 5일 월요일이에요.
• Cover the Korean on the month cards and read 1월 to 12월 aloud from the numbers alone. Slow down at the two red cards — that's where learners slip.
• Once a week, write next week's plans in Korean with the time words at the bottom: 다음 주 월요일에…, 주말에….
• Keep the PDF on your phone too: every blue heading links to the full lesson.

Walking Through the Chart

Days of the week. Every day ends in 요일 (yoil, "day of the week"), so the only part you really learn is the first syllable — and that's the one a native speaker wrote by hand at the top of each card. The seven syllables are the sun, the moon and the five elements: 월 moon, 화 fire, 수 water, 목 wood, 금 metal, 토 earth, 일 sun. They come from the traditional East Asian "seven luminaries" (칠요, chiryo): the sun, the moon and the five planets visible to the naked eye, which carry the element names in Korean — 화성 (Mars) is the "fire star," 금성 (Venus) the "metal star." More on Korean days of the week.

Months. A month is a Sino-Korean number plus 월: 일월, 이월, 삼월… up to 십이월. Two break the pattern and are boxed in red. June is 유월, not 육월, and October is 시월, not 십월 — these traditional pronunciations drop the final ㄱ and ㅂ, and Korean spelling follows the sound (Korean Spelling Rules, Article 52). Calendars print 6월 and 10월, so the numbers never warn you. See Korean months and dates.

Reading a date. Korean goes from big to small — year, month, day, then weekday — and every number is Sino-Korean. Year is 년, month is 월, day is 일:

Said aloud, that's 이천이십육 년 시월 구 일 금요일 (icheon isimnyuk nyeon siwol gu il geumyoil). For the numbers themselves, the Korean numbers chart has both systems and when to use each.

Time words. The bottom row gives eight words you'll use daily: 어제 (yesterday), 오늘 (today), 내일 (tomorrow), 주말 (weekend), 평일 (weekday), 지난주 (last week), 이번 주 (this week) and 다음 주 (next week). Two more worth adding in the margin: 그저께 (geujeokke, the day before yesterday) and 모레 (more, the day after tomorrow).

Common Learner Mistakes

• 육월 and 십월. The months are 유월 and 시월. But the exception is only for the month names: the 6th of a month is 육 일 (yugil) and the 10th is 십 일 (sibil).
• Writing 몇 일 for "what date." The standard spelling is 며칠, because it's pronounced [며칠], not [며딜] (Korean Spelling Rules, Article 27). 몇 월 is fine, so the full question is 몇 월 며칠이에요?
• Native numbers in dates. Dates always take Sino-Korean numbers: 삼월, not 셋월; 오 일, not 다섯 일.
• English order. "Friday, October 9" becomes 10월 9일 금요일 — weekday last.
• Adding 에 to 오늘, 내일 and 어제. Days and 주말 take 에 (월요일에, 주말에), but these three normally stand alone: 내일 만나요, not 내일에 만나요.
• Spacing. 지난주 is one word, but 이번 주 and 다음 주 are written with a space.

Related Knowledge

• Korean days of the week
• Korean months and dates
• Korean numbers chart
• Native vs Sino-Korean numbers
• Korean public holidays