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:

Or, to describe the temperature in Mandarin, you could use:

Try adding 很hěn (very) to any of these for more extreme weathers in Mandarin, eg 很热hěn rè (very hot).

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

• 今天Jīn tiān – Today, eg hot and cold

• 今天是Jīn tiān shì – Today is, eg sunny and cloudy

• 今天有Jīn tiān yǒu – Today has, eg fog

• 今天下Jīn tiān xià – Today falls, eg rain and snow

• 今天刮Jīn tiān guā – Today blows, eg wind

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:今天英格兰很热Jīn tiān Yīng gé lán hěn rè – Today it is very hot in England

The literal translation for this is 今天Jīn tiān (Today) 英格兰Yīng gé lán (England) 很热hěn rè (very hot).