November is koud.

Yes. In Dutch, month names are normally written with a lowercase letter: november, december, januari, etc.

It is capitalized here only because it is the first word of the sentence.

Compare:

• November is koud.
• In november is het koud.

So the rule is:

• sentence-initial → capital letter
• elsewhere in the sentence → lowercase

It is understandable, but it is a little less natural than some other ways Dutch speakers would often say this.

More idiomatic alternatives are:

• In november is het koud. = It is cold in November.
• November is een koude maand. = November is a cold month.

November is koud is grammatically possible, but it sounds a bit like you are describing the month itself as having the quality cold, rather than making the more usual general statement about the weather.

Because November is the name of a month, and month names normally do not take an article in Dutch.

So you say:

• November is koud.
• Ik hou van november.
• In november regent het vaak.

This is similar to English, where you also usually do not say the November when you mean the month in general.

Is is the third-person singular present tense of the verb zijn = to be.

The subject is November, which is singular, so the correct verb form is is.

A quick mini-paradigm:

• ik ben = I am
• jij bent / ben jij = you are
• hij/zij/het is = he/she/it is
• wij zijn = we are
• jullie zijn = you are
• zij zijn = they are

So:

• November is koud.

Because koud is used here as a predicate adjective: it comes after the verb is and describes the subject.

After zijn, adjectives usually stay in their basic form:

• De soep is warm.
• Het water is koud.
• November is koud.

You get koude when the adjective comes before a noun:

• een koude maand = a cold month
• de koude winter = the cold winter

So:

• November is koud. ✅
• November is een koude maand. ✅

Good question. Dutch often uses het as a dummy subject in weather and temperature expressions:

• Het is koud. = It is cold.
• Het is warm. = It is warm.

But in November is koud, the sentence already has a real subject: November.

So you do not need the dummy het here.

Compare:

• Het is koud in november. = It is cold in November.
• November is koud. = November is cold.

Both are possible, but they are structured differently.

You say:

• In november is het koud.

Notice the word order:

• In november comes first.
• The verb is comes next.
• Then the subject het.

This is a very common Dutch pattern: when something other than the subject comes first, the finite verb still stays in the second position.

So not:

• In november het is koud. ❌

But:

• In november is het koud. ✅

This is one of the most important word-order patterns in Dutch.

A rough English-friendly guide:

• november → noh-VEM-bər
• koud → roughly kowt or kowd, with ow like in cow

A few notes:

• The stress in november is on the second syllable: no-VEM-ber
• The ou in koud is a Dutch diphthong, somewhat like the vowel sound in English cow
• The final d in Dutch can sound a bit like t in actual pronunciation

So koud may sound to English ears a bit like kowt.

No, not in this exact sentence, because it is the first word.

So:

• November is koud. ✅

But if you move it later in the sentence, it becomes lowercase:

• In november is het koud. ✅

So the capitalization here is about sentence position, not about the month name itself always being capitalized.