Japanese Weather Words for Small Talk and Forecasts

Weather nouns and the adjectives beside them

Japanese weather words split into nouns and adjectives, and the split decides the grammar. Hare, kumori, ame and yuki are nouns, so the sentence is noun plus desu: kyō wa hare desu. Atsui, samui and suzushii are i-adjectives, so they conjugate on their own: samui desu, samukatta desu, samuku narimashita. Rain and snow also get a verb, furu, to fall, and the ongoing form is what you use when you look out of the window: ame ga futte imasu. Wind does not fall; it blows, fuku, but most speakers just say kaze ga tsuyoi desu.

The particles are the part that goes wrong. Tenki takes ga with ii and warui, so ii tenki desu ne is fine and tenki ga ii desu ne is fine, but tenki wa ii desu tends to sound like a contrast with something else that is not good. Days take wa as the topic: kyō wa, ashita wa, shūmatsu wa. Put the day first, the weather noun or adjective last, and you have the shape of every weather sentence in the language.

Weather and forecast vocabulary reference

Two readings need a warning. 梅雨 is read tsuyu in speech and baiu in formal writing and in the compound baiu zensen, the seasonal rain front, so you will hear both on the news. And kaze for wind shares its sound with kaze for a cold, written 風邪; kaze o hikimashita is the illness, kaze ga tsuyoi is the weather, and the verb tells you which.

Atsui or mushiatsui, samui or suzushii

Japanese has a complaint word and a comfort word for each end of the thermometer. Atsui is hot and unwelcome; mushiatsui is hot and humid, and in the months when Japanese summer is at its worst it is the word everyone uses, so much so that atsui alone can sound like you have not noticed the humidity. Samui is cold and unwelcome; suzushii is cool and pleasant, the word for a breeze on a summer evening or a shop with good air conditioning. Atatakai is warm and pleasant, the spring word, and hadazamui, skin-cold, is the mild chill of an autumn night when a jacket would have been sensible.

The comfort words are compliments. Suzushii desu ne about someone's office is praise of the air conditioning; atatakai desu ne in March is shared relief. The complaint words invite agreement and sympathy, which is exactly what small talk wants, so both sets get used constantly. Grammar is the same for all of them because they are i-adjectives: past with katta, negative with kunai, and the becoming form with ku natte kimashita, which is how you say the season is turning.

Four seasons, the rainy season and typhoon season

The four season words are haru, natsu, aki and fuyu, and they take ni naru for the change: haru ni narimashita, spring has come. Each season brings its own small-talk vocabulary: hanami and kafun, cherry blossom viewing and pollen, in spring; hanabi and mushiatsui in summer; kōyō, the autumn colours, in autumn; and yuki in winter. Sugoshiyasui, easy to live through, is the standard praise for spring and autumn, and it is what people say when the humidity finally lifts.

Two extra seasons sit inside the calendar. Tsuyu, the rainy season, arrives in early summer, and its start and end have their own nouns, tsuyuiri and tsuyuake, which are announced and then discussed for days. Typhoon season follows in late summer and early autumn, when taifū are numbered rather than named: taifū jū-gō, typhoon number ten. The verbs that go with them are chikazuku, to approach, and the vaguer kuru, and the small talk is about trains, since a typhoon stops them.

Reading a forecast

A Japanese forecast is a chain of nouns joined by three connectors, and once you can read the chain the rest is numbers. Nochi means then: hare nochi kumori is clear in the morning and cloudy later. Tokidoki means on and off: kumori tokidoki ame is cloudy with rain coming and going. Ichiji is a short spell: hare ichiji ame is mostly clear with a brief shower. Tokoro ni yori, in places, hedges the whole thing, and the spoken forecast ends in deshō, the probable form, because forecasters do not say desu about tomorrow.

The numbers come as three fixed phrases. Kōsui kakuritsu is the chance of precipitation, given as a percentage, and it is the figure people quote when deciding whether to carry a kasa. Saikō kion and saitei kion are the high and the low in degrees, do. Mōshobi and nettaiya are the two words that make the news in summer, and hyōtenka, below freezing, is the winter equivalent. Pass any of them on with sō desu, the hearsay form, and you have a small-talk line.

Say the forecast aloud even when you read it on a phone. The vocabulary of a written forecast is the same vocabulary you will use to report it to a colleague, and reading it once in Japanese each morning is the cheapest listening practice there is, because the television version uses exactly these words in exactly this order.

The sō desu ne exchange and the one extra turn

The default opener between neighbours, colleagues and shopkeepers is a weather adjective plus desu ne, and the default answer is sō desu ne. That is a complete, polite exchange, and many conversations end there on purpose. Ne is an invitation to agree, not a question, so the beginner mistake is answering hai, which sounds as though you have been asked whether it is hot. Agree first, then either repeat the adjective with hontō ni or add one comparison: kinō yori, compared with yesterday; ashita mo, tomorrow too; or the hearsay form ame da sō desu.

That second turn is the whole skill. A comparison or a forecast gives the other person something to respond to, and their response is usually a question about you, which is where the conversation leaves the weather. The broader small-talk structure of opening, extending and closing has its own guide; here the point is that weather is the cheapest way in, because both of you can see it and neither of you needs to know anything about the other.

Weather inside plans: if it rains

Plans in Japan are made with the weather as a condition, and three grammar shapes cover it. Tara is the everyday conditional: ame ga futtara, if it rains, built on the plain past form plus ra, so hareru gives haretara and kuru gives kitara. Baai is the more formal case: ame no baai wa, in the case of rain, common in written notices. Demo on a noun means even if: ame demo ikimasu, we go even if it rains. Two set phrases from event notices are worth recognising on sight, uten chūshi, cancelled in rain, and uten kekkō, going ahead rain or shine.

Weather words in set greetings

Weather also lives inside fixed greetings that go beyond small talk. Spoken ones wish the other person well through the season: atsui hi ga tsuzukimasu ga, okarada ni ki o tsukete kudasai, the hot days continue, so please look after yourself. Samuku natte kimashita ne, it has turned cold, is often followed by kaze o hikanai yō ni, so as not to catch a cold. Cards and letters open with seasonal formulas such as shochū omimai mōshiagemasu, the midsummer greeting, and formal correspondence still uses phrases like baiu no kō, in the rainy season, before the business starts.

One phrase belongs in every learner's ear because it is said to guests. Ashimoto no warui naka, okoshi itadaki arigatō gozaimasu thanks people for coming despite bad conditions underfoot, and it opens events, weddings and shop announcements on rainy days. You will hear it long before you need to say it, and recognising it tells you that the weather has been noticed on your behalf.

A daily weather routine

• Say the morning weather in three forms before you leave the house: noun, adjective, and a furu or fuku verb sentence.
• Read the day's forecast aloud and translate the connectors: nochi, tokidoki, ichiji, and the two temperatures.
• Open one real conversation a day with an adjective plus desu ne, and always add the second turn with yori, mo or sō desu.
• Make one plan with tara each week, even a private one: haretara, jitensha de ikimasu.
• Collect the seasonal greetings as the seasons change and use the current one in an email sign-off.