Learn how to ask a virtual assistant about the weather
Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
| Hi everyone |
| I'm Yun. |
| Hi 大家好 我是雲。 |
| Hi dājiā hǎo, wǒ shì Yun. |
| Welcome to the Whiteboard Lessons. |
| In this lesson |
| you'll learn basic vocabulary words and phrases used in weather reports. |
| Let's get started. |
| Okay, let's look at the vocabulary. |
| Here are the five most commonly used weather nouns in Chinese. |
| The first one is |
| 雨 |
| Yǔ |
| means rain. |
| 雨 |
| Yǔ |
| And the second one is |
| 雪 |
| Xuě |
| meaning snow. |
| 雪 |
| Xuě |
| Now I know in these two words, there is a vowel |
| 雨 |
| Yǔ |
| which is kind of tricky for native English speakers to pronounce, |
| but here's a little trick. |
| So try to pronounce the English |
| 依 |
| Yī |
| and then keep your tongue position |
| 依, |
| Yī, |
| then try to round the lips. |
| 依, |
| Yī, |
| 雨 |
| Yǔ |
| 依, |
| Yī, |
| 雨 |
| Yǔ |
| got it? |
| Very easy, right? |
| Next one |
| 風 |
| Fēng |
| wind |
| 風 |
| Fēng |
| And we have |
| 雷電 |
| Léidiàn |
| thunder and lightning. |
| 雷電 |
| Léidiàn |
| It's actually two words together, |
| well because usually thunder and lightning, they come together, |
| so we use |
| 雷電 |
| Léidiàn |
| together. |
| But in common life settings |
| 電 |
| Diàn |
| can also mean electricity. |
| Last one |
| 霧 |
| Wù |
| fog |
| 霧 |
| Wù |
| So try to round your lips and make it really tense when you pronounce this sound |
| 霧 |
| Wù |
| Now let's take a look at the Chinese characters. |
| You might have already noticed that we have |
| 雨 |
| Yǔ |
| in the four characters here |
| 雪 |
| Xuě |
| 雷 |
| Léi |
| 霧. |
| Wù. |
| What's going on here? |
| How come all of the characters have |
| 雨? |
| Yǔ? |
| Well |
| 雨? |
| Yǔ? |
| is a radical. |
| So what is a radical? |
| Well, a radical is kind of a building block of a Chinese character, |
| which often indicates |
| the meaning or the origin or sometimes even the pronunciation of the characters. |
| For example, in this case here |
| we already learned |
| 雨 |
| Yǔ |
| means rain |
| so which means all these characters, |
| they are kind of related to rain. |
| For example |
| 雪 |
| Xuě |
| a sort of a rain |
| and |
| 雾 |
| Wù |
| kind of a water droplets in the air. |
| So they all kind of have the same meaning related to rain in one way or another. |
| So that's why we use the |
| 雨 |
| Yǔ |
| as a radical to indicate this meaning in all these characters. |
| A lady is asking her smart speaker |
| 小铁 |
| Xiǎo tiě |
| how the weather is today. |
| Listen and pay attention to how the AI reports the weather. |
| 小铁 |
| Xiǎo tiě |
| 今天天气怎么样? |
| jīntiān tiānqì zěnme yàng? |
| Little iron, how is the weather today? |
| 今天上午有雪,下午有雨. |
| Jīntiān shàngwǔ yǒu xuě, xiàwǔ yǒu yǔ. |
| Today there is snow in the morning and there is rain in the afternoon. |
| Now let's look at some examples. |
| 今天上午有雷电 |
| Jīntiān shàngwǔ yǒu léidiàn |
| 下午有雨. |
| xiàwǔ yǒu yǔ. |
| Today there is thunder and lightning in the morning and there is rain in the afternoon. |
| Another one |
| 今天上午有雾 |
| Jīntiān shàngwǔ yǒu wù |
| 下午有风. |
| Xiàwǔ yǒu fēng. |
| Today there is fog in the morning and there is wind in the afternoon. |
| Now here's the pattern you can use with the weather nouns. |
| 今天上午有 |
| Jīntiān shàngwǔ yǒu |
| weather noun. |
| For example, you can replace with |
| 雨 |
| Yǔ |
| or |
| 风, |
| Fēng |
| 下午有 |
| Xiàwǔ yǒu |
| weather noun here. |
| Which means today there is |
| for example |
| rain in the morning and there is another weather noun in the afternoon. |
| Notice in Chinese weather reports |
| sometimes nouns are used |
| sometimes adjectives are used. |
| The common adjectives used in weather reports are |
| 晴 |
| Qíng |
| sunny. |
| 晴 |
| Qíng |
| and |
| 阴 |
| Yīn |
| overcast. |
| 阴 |
| Yīn |
| And last one |
| 多云 |
| Duōyún |
| literally means many clouds, so cloudy. |
| 多云 |
| Duōyún |
| In this case, you can remove the verb |
| 有 |
| Yǒu |
| in the main pattern, and the pattern with adjectives is |
| 今天上午 |
| Jīntiān shàngwǔ |
| you add weather adjectives. |
| 下午 |
| Xiàwǔ |
| weather adjectives. |
| Which means today it's weather adjectives in the morning |
| and it's weather adjectives in the afternoon. |
| For example |
| we can say |
| 今天上午晴, 下午多云. |
| Jīntiān shàngwǔ qíng, xiàwǔ duōyún. |
| So today it's sunny in the morning and it's cloudy in the afternoon. |
Comments
Hide