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There is one topic that people can always talk about–the weather. If you are learning Spanish you may want to prepare yourself for a casual weather conversation. You can get ready to ask and answer questions about how the weather is currently, or what the forecast–el pronóstico–says it will be. You may want to be able to excuse yourself from certain events on account of the weather. Perhaps you would like to know more about places where the weather is characteristically to your liking; that is, places that have a certain climate.

Our purpose here is to provide you with some useful terms and phrases you can put to use in conversational situations about the weather.

As a start, lets learn some expressions with the main weather verb: hacer ‘to make or do.’

Hace frío. — It's cold.
Hace calor. — It's hot.
Hace sol. — It's sunny.
Hace fresco. — It's cool.
Hace viento. — It's windy.
Hace buen tiempo. — It is good weather.
Hace mal tiempo. — It is bad weather.

Llover is the word for the verb ‘to rain’, and nevar means ‘to snow’. As in English these verbs are used impersonally.

Llueve. — It rains.
Nieva. — It snows.
Truena. (tronar) — It thunders.
Va a llover. — It's going to rain.
Va a nevar. — It's going to snow.

Some weather conditions can go with hay, an impersonal verb form related to haber ‘to be or exist.’

Hay nubes. — There are clouds.
Hay sol. — There is sun.
Hay llovizna. — There is drizzle.
Hay niebla. — There is fog.
Hay neblina. — There is low fog.
Hay brisa. — There is a breeze, light wind.
Hay relámpago. — There is lightning.

An ongoing condition may be communicated using the verb estar ‘to be (in a condition).’

Está nublado. — It is cloudy.
Está lloviendo. — It is raining.
Está nevando. — It is snowing.

Note that a verb you will not find in weather expressions is ser ‘to be.’ It is worth pointing that out as English weather expressions are formed around ‘is.’

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In the next Spanish ‘how to’ lesson–How’s the Weather? – in Spanish: part 2, we’ll see how some of the weather expressions work in conversational exchange.

A student of Spanish learns very early that the articles vary according to the gender and number of the following noun. Articles are those little words that accompany nouns: “the” or “a” in English–telling you whether the noun is referring to a specific thing (definite) or a non-specific thing (indefinite). Since nouns in Spanish belong to one of two gender classes and nouns may be singular or plural, there are many more forms of the article, as in this chart:

There is a third neuter article, lo.

This article has no plural. It has a wide range of use before adjectives and certain other parts of speech to make them into nouns:

lo verdadero — that which is true
lo posible — that which is possible
lo mío — mine, that which is mine

(Compare this with la mía, which would refer to an antecedent feminine noun.)

lo difícil — the difficult thing
lo importante — the important thing

Notice that lo is used where the referent idea is not some specific thing but rather an abstract situation or collection of unidentified things:

Me pasó a mí lo mismo. — The same thing happened to me.
Lo del jefe ya se solucionó. — The problem regarding the boss is already solved.

This same neuter gender also shows up in the neuter demonstrative pronouns, esto, eso and aquello, more or less corresponding to “this, that and the other.”

Alcánceme eso. — Hand me that (thing).
¿Qué es esto? — What's this?
No quiero discutir aquello del otro día. — I don't want to argue about the issue of the other day.

These neuter demonstrative pronouns, like lo, the neuter article, also never occur in the plural and never refer to a gendered word but rather to unidentified or abstract situations or things.

In the lessons you will see how useful neuter can be in conversations.

How To Speak the Vowels in Spanish…and More…
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You probably want to talk Spanish even more than to read it at this point, but right from the beginning you can take advantage of the Spanish alphabet to cue pronunciation. The Spanish alphabet is one of the world’s best representations of a spoken language. Once you get used to the sound values for the letters you can forget about most of those distracting and strange-looking pronunciation guides you may have seen in other materials:

gracias, say “grah-see-ahs” (this is not only distracting, it’s inaccurate)

Also, you will want to practice some of those similarities and differences between English and Spanish sounds that will tend to carry over from your English speech habits when you are trying to form new Spanish speech habits. At first you will have to pay close attention to the models, trying to mimic them, and practice, practice, practice.

Pronunciation, after all, is the result of habitual physical articulation (voice and mouth movements). Habits that are repeated daily usually become well entrenched after about a month of practice.

Spanish Vowel Sound Formation

Spanish is a musical, sonorant language. It sounds that way to us partly because of its system of five cardinal vowels, almost like operatic singing vowels.

• The lowest vowel–most open in the mouth, with the tongue in the lowest position–is ‘a’. It is written with the letter “a” (yes, say “ah” — but short and crisp).
• Raise the tongue to mid-position, close the jaw a bit, and sing ‘e’ (like the vowel in the English “bait”, but don’t trail off into the y-sounding off-glide).
• Raise the jaw a bit more and also the tongue, spread the lips a bit more, and sing ‘i’ (yes, like the vowel in English “bee”, but keep it steady and short).
• ‘e’ and ‘i’ are the two front vowels. Now go back again to the open, low vowel ‘a’. Next, we’ll work on the two rounded back vowels.
• From ‘a’, round the lips, raise the tongue a bit, and sound ‘o’ (as in English “boat”, but don’t trail off into a “w” off-glide).
• For ‘u’, again round the lips, raise the tongue more, and close the jaw a bit more (like English “boo”, but again guard against the wuh-ish off-glide).

That’s it. You may be helped to remember the five-vowel system by keeping in mind a triangle that represents vowel tongue height, jaw openness and spreading or rounding of the lips:

Spanish Vowels: Articulation Chart

¹ The front vowels are accompanied by lip spreading.
² The back vowels are accompanied by lip rounding.
³ The central vowel [a] is neutral, similar to the mouth formation of “o” in English “pot”.

If you’d like to see and hear the Spanish vowels, watch this video: Learn Spanish Vowels Video.

Here is an amusing chant that has been used in some Spanish speaking countries by children learning the vowel letters and sounds. Try it, concentrating on the vowel and the word at the end of each line.

A.   El burro se va. — A.   The burro is leaving.
E.   El burro se fue. — E.   The burro has gone.
I.   El burro está aquí. — I.   The burro is right here.
O.   El burro soy yo. — O.   I'm the burro.
U.   El burro eres tú. — U.   You're the burro.

‘Burro’ is a good-natured reference to thick-headedness. Say this ditty over and over until you have banished all Englishy sound attachments to these letters.

The next lesson will deal with consonants, and putting together syllables, words and phrases.

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