Lesson-French Weather Expressions

In the last module, we learned how to conjugate the verb faire. This verb, conjugated for the third person singular form, coupled with an impersonal use of the subject pronoun “il” is used as a standard expression to describe the weather. Look at the following weather expressions that are commonly used in French:

Quel temps fait-il ?

What’s the weather ?

Il fait beau       → It’s nice out.

Il fait du soleil → It’s sunny out.

Il fait chaud     → It’s hot out.

Il fait humide   → It’s humid out.

Il fait mauvais → It’s bad out.

Il fait froid       → It’s cold out.

Il fait frais       → It’s chilly out.

Other expressions that don’t use faire but describe or relate to the weather include:

Il pleut             →It’s raining

Il neige            →It’s snowing

Il y a / Il n’y a pas …There is / There is not any

de la pluie       some/any rain

de la neige       some/any snow

de la glace       some/any ice

du tonnerre      some/any thunder

du foudre         some/any lightning

du brouillard   some/any fog

du vent             some/any wind

Note: All of these expressions are given in the present tense. When you learn how to speak in the past and future tenses in later modules, you can adjust these phrases to fit accordingly. Meaning, you will change the conjugation of faire (fait), pleuvoir (pleut), neiger (neige), or avoir (a) to match the time you wish to describe. → “It was bad out. It was raining. There was some thunder.”