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.

Talking about the weather in Mandarin

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

Seasons in Mandarin

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

Places in Mandarin

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).