Talking about rainy weather
The British are famous for their love of talking about the weather (méteo), however the weather is a good topic of conversation for all people regardless of nationality as it directly affects how we live, our psychological mood (humeur) and what activities we can do. Britain is also famous for the amount of rain the island gets, there are lots of ways that British people describe the rain, in terms of grammar we can use a verb, noun or adjective. Examples with the verb to rain:
It is raining a lot today (present continuous) / it rained a lot yesterday (past simple) / It has rained all week (present perfect).
Examples with the noun – the rain: There is heavy rain (fortes pluies) / light rain (pluie fine/ légere)
Examples with the adjective – rainy: Today is a rainy day (this is less common). With the rain comes the clouds (les nuages) and often the wind (le vent). It is possible to say that it is a cloudy windy rainy day!
We can start a conversation about the weather by making an exclamation “it’s nice weather for ducks today!” (this expression means that it is raining a lot and only the ducks are happy). You can then ask your interlocuter what they think about the weather, what the weather is like in their country/ region. You can ask the question “is the weather also lousy in your country/ region? “ (Il fait un temp de chien).
Weather permitting (si le temps le permet) another small talk subject to follow soon!