Oktober kommer etter september.

In Norwegian, the names of months are normally not capitalized. However, Oktober is capitalized here because it is the first word of the sentence. september stays lowercase because month names are usually written with a small letter in Norwegian.

So if the word appeared in the middle of a sentence, you would normally write oktober.

Kommer is the present tense of å komme, which usually means to come.

In this sentence, it is used in a very natural Norwegian way to talk about sequence or order. So Oktober kommer etter september literally means October comes after September.

This is very similar to English, where comes after can also describe order.

Etter means after.

It is used when talking about:

• time
• order
• sequence

So in Oktober kommer etter september, etter september means after September.

This is the normal preposition to use when one thing follows another in a sequence.

No, this sentence has very basic Norwegian word order:

• Oktober = subject
• kommer = verb
• etter september = prepositional phrase

So the structure is:

Subject + Verb + Other information

That is very similar to English here: October + comes + after September

In Norwegian, month names are usually used without an article.

So you say:

• oktober
• september

not:

• den oktober
• en oktober
  unless you are using the word in a very different kind of expression.

This is similar to English, where we normally just say October and September, not the October.

Yes. That means September comes before October, and it expresses the same basic relationship from the opposite direction.

Both are natural:

• Oktober kommer etter september
• September kommer før oktober

Here:

• etter = after
• før = before

It can mean both.

Å komme often means to come in the sense of movement:

• Han kommer hjem. = He is coming home.

But it is also used more abstractly, including for time and sequence:

• Våren kommer etter vinteren. = Spring comes after winter.
• Navnet mitt kommer først. = My name comes first.

So this use in the sentence is completely normal.

A simple learner-friendly approximation is:

ok-TOB-er KOM-er ET-er sep-TEM-ber

A few helpful notes:

• Oktober sounds close to English October, but with clearer syllables.
• kommer has a short o sound.
• etter has a clear double t, though not as strongly pronounced as in English spelling.
• september is similar to English September, but with Norwegian vowel quality.

If you want to sound natural, keep the rhythm fairly even and do not stress too many words.

It is natural Norwegian.

Norwegian really does use kommer etter in this kind of sentence, just as English uses comes after. So this is not an awkward word-for-word translation. It is a normal and correct way to describe the order of the months.