The grammar of weather

[Kuchigakatai]

Something I find funny about English and Spanish is how different weather conditions are handled differently grammatically.


Rainy weather is handled in both languages with an impersonal verb. And "It's rainy (today)" in English, with an adjective, would simply refer to a statement from a weather forecast! For which in Spanish I'd say Hoy va a llover (Today it's going to rain) or similar.

Está lloviendo. ("it's raining")
It's raining.

Snowy weather can be handled with either an impersonal verb or a phrase with a common verb in Spanish, but only an impersonal verb in English. Well, I think you can also say "Snow is falling" in English, but it's not something I hear much at all.

Está nevando. ("it's snowing")
Está cayendo nieve. ("snow is falling")
It's snowing.

Contrast the above with sunny weather, which is handled with adjectives in both languages, except Spanish alternatively uses a verb-object phrase too.

Hace sol. ("it makes sun")
Está soleado. ("it's sunny")
It's sunny.

Similarly for windy and cloudy weather:

Hace viento. ("it makes wind")
It's windy.

Está nublado. ("it's cloudy")
It's cloudy.

I suspect that historically at least it likely had something to do with how rain and snow involve visible objects falling down, whereas sunny, windy and cloudy weather are different. This might have led speakers to come up with special verbs for when objects are falling. This is somewhat more obvious to observe in literal form in (Taiwanese) Mandarin.

下雨 xià yǔ ("fall rain", so literally "snow is falling")
下雪 xià xuě ("fall snow")

Contrast how different other weather conditions are:

天氣很好 tiānqì hěn hǎo ("weather very good", 'It's sunny')
天氣不錯 tiānqì bú cuò ("weather not bad", 'It's sunny')
風很大 fēng hěn dà ("wind very big", 'It's windy')
多雲 duōyún ("many-cloud", a verb, 'It's cloudy')


What about other languages?

[Kuchigakatai]

French:

Il pleut. ("it rains")
Il neige. ("it snows")

Il fait beau. ("it makes beautiful", in a rather similar way to Mandarin, 'it's sunny')
Il fait soleil. ("it makes sun")
Il fait du soleil. ("it makes some sun", with a "partitive" article, may imply there is only some sun, less than il fait soleil)
Il fait du vent. ("it makes wind")
Il y a des nuages. ("there are some clouds", 'it's cloudy')
C'est nuageux. ("it's cloudy")
Le temps est nuageux. ("the weather is cloudy")

[Linguoboy]

Korean is very verb-heavy. (The class of true adjectives is minuscule with most of the work being done by descriptive verbs.) I've used the plain form throughout, since this distinguishes action verbs from descriptive verbs and is the usual form used in written weather reports. [Note how all the action verbs feature an infixed /n/.]

Action verbs:
비가 온다. /pi ka on.ta/ "Rain comes." ~ 비가 내린다. /pi ka nay.lin.ta/ "Rain descends".
눈이 온다. /nwun i on.ta/ "Snow comes." ~ 눈이 내린다. /nwun i nay.lin.ta/ "Snow descends".
바람이 분다. /palam i pun.ta./ "Wind blows."
폭풍우(暴風雨) 친다. /phokphung.u chin.ta/. "Rainstorm strikes."
안개가 낀다. /ankay ka kkin.ta/ "Fogs envelopes."

Descriptive verbs:
화창(和暢)하다. /hwachang.hata/ "is pleasant." (和暢 is a Sino-Korean compound consisting of the characters for "harmony" and "smooth". It implies a sunny day without much wind.)
(하늘이) 맑다. /(hanul i malk.ta/. "(Sky) is clear." (i.e. it's sunny out).
(하늘이) 흐리다. /(hanul i) hulita/ "(Sky) is cloudy".
(하늘이) 뿌옇다. /(hanul i) ppu.yeh.ta/ "(Sky) is hazy/grey." (i.e. due to heavy fog, smog, or dust in the air)

[alice]

A weird one is Scottish Gaelic Tha an t-uisge ann for "it's raining", literally "the water is in [it]".

[dɮ the phoneme]

Japanese is basically the the same as Korean here. Rain, wind, and snow are described with action verbs:

雨が降っている ame ga futte iru "rain is falling"
雪が降っている yuki ga futte iru "snow is falling"
風が吹いている kaze ga fuite iru "wind is blowing"

Note that they're all in the progressive, formed with the auxiliary verb iru, which seems to be the most neutral way to express the current weather conditions. On the other hand, I also hear kaze ga fuku "wind blows" fairly often, but virtually never hear ame ga furu or yuki ga furu ("rain/snow falls") to describe the immediate weather conditions.

Other weather descriptions are handled with "i-adjectives"/descriptive verbs:

天気がいい tenki ga ii "the weather is nice"

Or impersonal verbs:

今日は晴れている kyou wa harete iru "today TOP (it) is sunny"

[Linguoboy]

A weird one is Scottish Gaelic Tha an t-uisge ann for "it's raining", literally "the water is in [it]".

It's not so weird when you realise that ann is simply used to form presentational sentences in the Goidelic languages. The equivalent Irish sentence Tá an t-uisce ann, translates as "The water is there" or "There's the water". Essentially, it's the equivalent of the y in the French example Il y a des nuages. The way you say "It's foggy", for instance, is Tha ceò ann/Tá ceo ann "There is fog".

ETA:

Feck it, I wasn't going to do Irish because I thought it was too close to SAE, but maybe it's distinctive enough to be interesting. I imagine Non-Traditional Modern Irish closely maps English these days, but the traditional expressions tend to be a bit more "nouny", which I think generally the case for Traditional Modern Irish. (For instance, "sunny day" is normally lá gréine "day of sun" and not lá grianmhar.)

Tá bun ar an aimsir. "The weather is settled/calm." (lit. "There is a base on the weather.")
Tá grian ann. "It's sunny" (lit. "There is sun")
Tá ceo ann. "It's foggy." (lit. "There is fog".)
Tá báisteach ann. "It's rainy." (lit. "There is rain.")
Tá sé ag cur báistí/fearthainne. "It's raining." (lit. "It is casting rain".)
Tá sé ag cur sneachta. "It's snowing." (lit. "It is casting snow.")
Tá sé scamllach. "It's cloudy."
Tá sé dorcha. "It's overcast." (lit. "It is dark.")
Tá sé gaofar. "It's windy."
Tá sé garbh. "It's stormy." (lit. "It is rough.")
Tá sé ina ghála. "It's blowing a gale." (lit. "It is in its gale".)

[hwhatting]

Contrast the above with sunny weather, which is handled with adjectives in both languages, except Spanish alternatively uses a verb-object phrase too.

Hace sol. ("it makes sun")
Está soleado. ("it's sunny")
It's sunny.

What about "The sun is shining"?
That would be the normal way to put it in German:
Die Sonne scheint. / Es ist sonnig.
Es ist bewölkt. It's cloudy.
Es ist windig. It's windy.
Es regnet. It's raining.
Es schneit. It's snowing.

[Creyeditor]

(Colloquial) Indonesian doesn't really talk about sunshine a lot. In theory most weather expressions are independent one-word expressions, in practice they are usually combined with an aspectual particle e.g. lagi or the phrase di luar (LOC outside). Weather words in these expressions are not noun-y or verb-y in any very obvious way.

(Lagi) panas (di luar). It's hot outside.
(Lagi) dingin (di luar). It's cold outside.
(Lagi) mendung (di luar). It's cloudy outside.
(Lagi) angin (di luar). It's windy outside.
(Lagi) hujan (di luar). It's raining outside.
(Lagi) salju (di luar). It's snowing.

Interesting tidbit: snow can also be 'hujan salju', so literally snow rain, I guess because snow is considered a type if rain.

[Travis B.]

Contrast the above with sunny weather, which is handled with adjectives in both languages, except Spanish alternatively uses a verb-object phrase too.

Hace sol. ("it makes sun")
Está soleado. ("it's sunny")
It's sunny.

What about "The sun is shining"?
That would be the normal way to put it in German:
Die Sonne scheint. / Es ist sonnig.
Es ist bewölkt. It's cloudy.
Es ist windig. It's windy.
Es regnet. It's raining.
Es schneit. It's snowing.

I have always found the German way of expressing weather to be quite similar to how it is done in English aside from the use of the present where English uses the present progressive (for lack of a progressive in StG, even though one exists in some German varieties). But then, this should not really be surprising for obvious reasons.