Difference between synodic, sideral, nodical and anomalistic months.?

Question

Simplified.

Answer 1

These are different methods of marking out how long the moon takes to get back to the "same place", where "same place" has different defintions because in some cases it is respect to the earth which is moving about the sun during the month.
http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/astronomy/Month.html
sidereal - the moon goes round the earth and an observer there looks for a star to be in the same position relative the moon after about 27 days.
http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/astronomy/SiderealMonth.html
synodic - the moon, as observed from the earth, lines up with the sun again.
http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/astronomy/SynodicMonth.html
anomalistic - the moon gets as close to the earth as possible about every 27.5 days.
http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/astronomy/AnomalisticMonth.html
Nodical - instead of the time around the earth, the time the moon revolves on its own axis as measured against the ecliptic (the plane of the orbits of the planets). Note these are all about the same, which is why we only see one side of the moon, mostly.
"the nodical month, or time of revolution from one node to the same again, in length 27 d. 5 h. 5 m. 36 s.;"
http://dict.die.net/month/