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Hello and welcome to Learn English Vocabulary. My name is Jack and I’m making this podcast for you to learn or revise English vocabulary. You can find a transcript of this podcast on LearnEnglishVocabulary.co.uk. There’s a page for this podcast with the transcript, an activity and a task for you to do in the comments section.

Today, I’m going to do a very short weather quiz. This is a revision podcast of some language I covered in a weather podcast a few months ago. I’m going to start with a quiz and then I’m going to talk about a few extra words and phrases. 

I’m going to say six sentences with the weather word beeped out. These words are all adjectives. I’ll say each sentence twice and then I’ll reveal the answer.

Are you ready? 

Here’s number 1:

It was so ____________ on my drive to work this morning, I had to drive really slowly. I couldn’t see much at all. 

It was so ____________ on my drive to work this morning, I had to drive really slowly. I couldn’t see much at all. 

Can you work out what the missing word is?

The answer is … foggy.

It was so foggy on my drive to work this morning, I had to drive really slowly. I couldn’t see much at all. 

Number 2: 

The footpath next to the school was really slippery because it was so ____________ .

The footpath next to the school was really slippery because it was so ____________ .

Do you know what weather adjective I’m using? 

The answer is … icy.

The footpath next to the school was really slippery because it was so icy.

Number 3: 

It’s pretty ____________ , but I don’t think it’s going to rain. You never know. Better take an umbrella with you. 

It’s pretty ____________ , but I don’t think it’s going to rain. You never know. Better take an umbrella with you. 

I think this was a bit more difficult as there are a few words that could fill  the gap. However, the answer I was looking for is … cloudy.

It’s pretty cloudy, but I don’t think it’s going to rain. You never know. Better take an umbrella with you. 

Number 4:

It was raining, but I couldn’t use my umbrella because it was so ____________ . I would have been blown away.

It was raining, but I couldn’t use my umbrella because it was so ____________ . I would have been blown away.

I think this one is really easy. The answer is … windy.

It was raining, but I couldn’t use my umbrella because it was so windy. I would have been blown away.

Number 5:

It’s a beautiful day. It’s quite cold, but there’s a blue sky and it’s ____________ . 

It’s a beautiful day. It’s quite cold, but there’s a blue sky and it’s ____________ . 

This is a beautiful weather word that we don’t get to use that much in England. The answer is … sunny.

It’s a beautiful day. It’s quite cold, but there’s a blue sky and it’s sunny. 

Number 6:

The sky is dark and ____________ . I think we’re going to have some thunder later.

The sky is dark and ____________ . I think we’re going to have some thunder later.

Do you know the answer to number 6? The answer is  … stormy.

The sky is dark and stormy. I think we’re going to have some thunder later.

I hope you all did very well. 

Rainy

I didn’t include rainy in this quiz. You see, rainy is less commonly used as an adjective. We do talk about rainy days, meaning days when it is raining and we also have an expression to save something for a rainy day which means to put some money aside in case you need it in the future because you are out of work or for some other reason. But when it comes to talking about the weather, we have lots of other words to talk about rain. 

Instead of saying it’s rainy, we say it’s raining. If it’s just raining a little bit, we say it’s spitting. To spit means to blow something hard out of your mouth. It’s not polite. If it’s raining a bit harder, so, it’s actually raining, but not heavily, we say it’s drizzling. This is the worst sort of rain in my opinion as it’s the sort of rain that can set in for days. Next is just raining. If it’s raining a lot, you can say it’s chucking it down or it’s pissing it down, though this last expression is a bit rude. It’s quite vulgar. It’s not really crude, but you probably shouldn’t say it at work.

Weather idioms

One thing that I feel I need to point out, is that we don’t really say it’s raining cats and dogs. However, there is an animal idiom that we do use to talk about rainy weather. We say ‘nice weather for ducks’. I’m not sure how common this is these days, but I have used the phrase a few times. I do like this phrase because you get to pretend to be really upbeat and positive about weather that normally makes everyone depressed. 

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Thanks for listening.