Lesson 20A1

Weather & Seasons

Dutch describes weather with verbs where English mostly reaches for adjectives: what English calls 'windy' Dutch simply calls waaien, 'to blow'. A weather report therefore has a very different grammatical shape in the two languages.

Grammar Comparison

Weather verbs do the work of English weather adjectives

Dutch

Het waait. Het vriest. Het hagelt.

English

It's windy. It's freezing. It's hailing.

English has a small set of weather verbs ('it's raining', 'it's snowing') but switches to 'it is' + adjective for most conditions: windy, foggy, sunny. Dutch keeps going with verbs: waaien (to be windy), vriezen (to freeze), hagelen (to hail), misten (to be foggy). These verbs only ever appear with het as their subject, and that het refers to nothing at all — exactly like the empty 'it' in 'it's raining'.

Seasons take the definite article and the preposition in

Dutch

in de zomer, in de winter

English

in summer, in winter

English can drop the article — 'in summer' is as good as 'in the summer'. Dutch cannot: in de zomer, in de herfst, in het voorjaar. The article is fixed, and note that the seasons themselves split across genders (de zomer, de winter, de lente, de herfst are all de-words, but het voorjaar and het najaar are het-words), so the article also tells you which gender you are dealing with.

Temperature uses graden with no 'degrees of' construction

Dutch

Het is twintig graden. Het is vijf graden onder nul.

English

It's twenty degrees. It's five degrees below zero.

Dutch says het is + number + graden, with graden staying plural after any number above one. Below freezing, the phrase is onder nul ('below zero') rather than the English 'minus five' — though min vijf is heard in forecasts. There is no need for a word matching English 'Celsius' in everyday speech; the scale is assumed.

Vocabulary

het weerhet vayr

English: the weather

het regenthet RAY-khent

English: it's raining

het waaithet vahyt

English: it's windy

de zon schijntduh zon skhaynt

English: the sun is shining

het is koudhet iss kowt

English: it's cold

het is warmhet iss varm

English: it's warm

de lenteduh LEN-tuh

English: spring

de zomerduh ZOH-mer

English: summer

de herfstduh herfst

English: autumn

de winterduh VIN-ter

English: winter

Dutch	Pronunciation	English
het weer	het vayr	the weather
het regent	het RAY-khent	it's raining
het waait	het vahyt	it's windy
de zon schijnt	duh zon skhaynt	the sun is shining
het is koud	het iss kowt	it's cold
het is warm	het iss varm	it's warm
de lente	duh LEN-tuh	spring
de zomer	duh ZOH-mer	summer
de herfst	duh herfst	autumn
de winter	duh VIN-ter	winter

Finished this lesson?

← Colors & Clothing Days, Months & Dates →