What's the Weather Like? — Weather Words in Mandarin

Look outside or close your eyes and picture the sky today. Is it bright and sunny? Grey and rainy? Windy and wild? Every language in the world has words to describe the weather — because everyone looks at the same sky! Mandarin Chinese is spoken by more people than any other language on Earth. Today you are going to learn how people in China describe the weather — using sounds that might feel totally new to your mouth!

In Mandarin, we use a writing system made of characters. To help us read the sounds, we use something called pinyin — a way of spelling Mandarin sounds using the letters you already know. The pinyin tells you how to say the word out loud. Here are six key weather words. Read the pinyin aloud — slowly and carefully! ☀️ Sunny — 晴天 — Qíng tiān (say: ching tee-en) The word 'tiān' means 'sky' or 'day'. Qíng means clear. 🌧️ Rainy — 下雨 — Xià yǔ (say: shyah yoo) Xià means 'falling', and yǔ means 'rain'. So it literally means 'rain is falling'! ❄️ Snowy — 下雪 — Xià xuě (say: shyah shweh) Xuě means 'snow'. You can hear how 'xià' comes back — falling snow! 💨 Windy — 刮风 — Guā fēng (say: gwah fung) Fēng means 'wind'. Guā describes the blowing action. ☁️ Cloudy — 多云 — Duō yún (say: dwor yoon) Duō means 'many' and yún means 'cloud'. Many clouds = cloudy! ⛈️ Thunderstorm — 雷阵雨 — Léi zhèn yǔ (say: lay jen yoo) Léi means 'thunder'. This is a longer word — Mandarin can combine ideas into one big word. Top tip: In Mandarin, the marks above some letters (like ǔ or é) are called tones. They tell you how your voice rises or falls. Even small changes in tone can change the meaning of a word — so listening carefully really matters!