げつ vs. がつ pronunciations of 月

Y’all, I am still STRUGGLING with the rendaku on this one. Anybody have tips for not constantly cross-wiring them? I’m usually very successful with slowly allowing a pattern to present itself over a long period of reviews (like I have a solid sense of when to use とし vs. ねん, にち vs. じつ and it feels very natural), but at this point I fear I’m just making things worse by always entering the wrong one. Is it just one of those brute force memorization things that languages like to throw you sometimes?

TIA WK :waxing_crescent_moon::first_quarter_moon::full_moon::last_quarter_moon::waning_crescent_moon:

I’m gonna quote myself, I hope this helps you ^^

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Good news! It’s got an easy pattern! がつ is for month names ONLY (including asking what month it is). So, if you’re talking about 二月、十月、何月, it’s all がつ. Otherwise, use げつ!

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There’s also 正月 (しょうがつ) for the New Year :durtle_the_explorer:

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Thanks all, that makes it feel very easy to wrangle.

Oh, and this actually rendaku or is this just alternate readings? I had only cosidered rendaku to be shifting from one sound か to another が. I get there’s a whole set of “rules”, voiced, voiceless, et al. Not looking to trudge all that up, just being persnickety about the OP, すみません。

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Thank you, I did not know that! :heart:

〜Learning〜

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Alternate readings ^^

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Oh no, please do get persnickety with those kinds of details! It helps with understanding, and I don’t like walking around stupid.

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dude. Thank you so much for this!!

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