Mandarin: Weather and seasons

Talking about the weather in Mandarin follows a slightly different structure to English, but it’s simple enough to pick up.

In English, you might be asked:

How is the weather today?

You can ask this in Mandarin by saying:

今天的天气怎么样？Jīn tiān de tiān qì zěn me yang?

Breaking this question down, you can start to see the structural differences between Mandarin and English:

今天的Jīn tiān de (Today's) 天气tiān qì (weather) 怎么样？zěn me yang? (how is?)

Some key terms when talking about the weather in Mandarin include:

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To create a statement in Mandarin from the above words, there are four verb options:

1. 今天是Jīn tiān shì - Today is, eg sunny and cloudy

2. 今天有Jīn tiān yǒu - Today has, eg fog

3. 今天下Jīn tiān xià - Today falls, eg rain and snow

4. 今天刮Jīn tiān guā - Today blows, eg wind

Examples:

• 今天是晴天Jīn tiān shì qíng tiān - Today is sunny

• 今天有雾Jīn tiān yǒu wù - Today is foggy

• 今天下雨Jīn tiān xià yǔ - Today is rainy

• 今天刮风Jīn tiān guā fēng - Today is windy

Temperature

To describe the temperature in Mandarin, you could use:

For extremes, try adding 很hěn (very) to these:

Example:

• 今天很冷Jīn tiān hěn lěng - Today is very cold

Instead of ‘today’, you may want to talk about the weather in specific seasons in Mandarin.

For example, in Mandarin you could say:

• 冬天很冷Dōng tiān hěn lěng - In Winter it is very cold

• 秋天经常刮风Qiū tiān jīng cháng guā fēng - In Autumn it is often windy

If you want to talk about the weather of a specific place in Mandarin, you simply add the name of that place between 今天Jīn tiān (Today) and the weather.

For example in Mandarin you could say:今天苏格兰很热Jīn tiān Sū gé lán hěn rè - Today it is very hot in Scotland

The literal translation for this is 今天Jīn tiān (Today) 苏格兰Sū gé lán (Scotland) 很热hěn rè (very hot).

Now you've learnt how to talk about the weather and seasons in Mandarin, let's put it into a conversation!

Mary:今天天气不错！Jīn tiān tiān qì bú cuò! - It’s a nice day (literally: Today's weather is not bad).

Tom:是的，我喜欢北京的春天。Shì de, wǒ xǐ huān běi jīng de chūn tiān. - Yes, I like Beijing in the Spring.