General English Lower Intermediate Level
Lesson 17

• What do you do to keep fit?
• What other things would you like to kip fit?
• Do you do anything that isn’t very healthy?

• meteorological
  related to the scientific study of weather
• forecast
  a statement about what is probably going to happen
• keep an eye on
  check regularly
• symbols
  pictures or shapes that represent other things

• Rob
  Hello and welcome to 6 Minute Vocabulary. I'm Rob...
• Catherine
  And I'm Catherine. And our topic today is weather. Now Rob, apparently, British people love to talk about the weather. Do you think that's true?
• Rob
  Absolutely, you know me, I'm talking about it all the time. And in today's programme, we'll look at some key weather vocabulary and show you how to use it in different types of sentences.
• Catherine
  There'll be a quiz...
• Rob
  And we'll give you a top tip to help you learn vocabulary more effectively.
• Catherine
  So, on with the show! We'll start by listening to Harvey, talking about the weather where he lives. And we have a question for you at home.
• Rob
  The question is: what is the weather like for Harvey in spring?

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• Harvey
  I live in the north. I love it here, but the weather isn't too good. There's a lot of rain in the autumn and winter. In fact, it's raining right now. Sometimes it snows in the winter. In the spring the weather's usually quite windy. But it's lovely and sunny in summer.
• Rob
  So, that's Harvey. And we asked you about the weather in spring. What's it like?
• Catherine
  Harvey said that the weather gets quite windy in spring.
• Rob
  Well done if you got that right. And we'll talk more about windy weather later. First, let's talk about the rain! Listen to this clip:

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There's a lot of rain in the autumn and winter.

• Catherine
  In this sentence, rain is a noun, so in a sentence, we can say there is a lot of rain, or we can add a main verb, for example: I like rain. Rob - how do you feel about rain?
• Rob
  I hate rain because I like to do a lot of cycling and when it rains I get wet. But the word rain can also be a verb. For example: it rains a lot here in London; in fact, look out the window: it's raining now!
• Catherine
  It's always raining in London! And can add a letter 'y' to the end of rain to make the adjective rainy. Rob, do you use an umbrella on rainy days?
• Rob
  No I don't, I wear a coat - more practical.
• Catherine
  More 'blokey'!
• Rob
  More 'blokey', yes. So that's the noun - rain; the verb - rain; and the adjective - rainy. The word snow works in the same way. Listen to this another clip.

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In the spring the weather's usually quite windy.

• Catherine
  In the spring the weather's usually quite windy. In this sentence, windy is an adjective.
• Rob
  We can also use the word wind as a noun. Is there much wind today Catherine?
• Catherine
  There's quite a lot actually, I got quite blown around. So that's wind as a noun and windy as an adjective, but we can't use wind as a verb. You have to use a different verb like blow. The wind is blowing very hard today...
• Rob
  Right. And the word sun is the same. It's a noun:
• Catherine
  The sun is hot...
• Rob
  It can make an adjective:
• Catherine
  It's lovely and sunny...
• Rob
  But it isn't a verb. You need a different word for that.
• Catherine
  The sun is shining, even though it isn't!

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6 Minute Vocabulary from BBC Learning English.

• Rob
  And we're looking at weather words. OK, it's quiz time! Are these sentences correct or wrong? Number one. It's sunning today.
• Catherine
  That's wrong. You can't say it's sunning, because sun isn't a verb. Instead, say it's sunny or the sun is shining.
• Rob
  Number two. There was a lot of snow last week.
• Catherine
  And that's correct.
• Rob
  Here comes the last one. I don't like windy.
• Catherine
  And that's also wrong. Windy is an adjective, so we need to add a noun here. Say: I don't like windy weather. Or, use wind as a noun and say: I don't like wind.
• Rob
  And that's the end of the quiz. Well done if you got those right. And we've just got time for a top tip for learning vocabulary.
• Catherine
  We have Rob, and this is it: when you learn a new word for the first time, you'll learn it more effectively if you use it a few times in the first 24 hours. So, if you learn a new word in the morning Rob, look it up again in the evening before you go to sleep.
• Rob
  I'll do that. Thank you! There's more about this at bbclearningenglish.com. Join us again soon for more 6 Minute Vocabulary.
• Both
  Bye!

My name is Irena and I come from Ukraine. In Ukraine in winter, it's really beautiful because we have loads of fluffy snow; snow virtually covers - like a duvet – the ground turning everything white and silvery. So it can be very fantastic looking because the glum and doom of the wintery weather can be, in a way, improved by the snow cover but it is much colder. The summers, on the other hand, are very warm and beautiful. A typical temperature in the summer would be high 20s, early 30s. In Ukraine we can have spectacular thunderstorms in the summer, with beautiful bolts of lightning with really loud thunders and huge rains, tornados. Lately, the distinction between the seasons aren't quite as sharp as in the past because you can have snow in April, you can have thunderstorms in winter, so there is a lot of confusion with the weather and some people attribute it to the global warming.

Hello I'm Carolina and I'm from Argentina. I'm from the province of Buenos Aires. The winters can be very cold. We get frost in the winter and it could look like snow because it is really really white. And the summers are very very hot, you get like 40 degrees. You get really strong thunderstorms. And the rain would be really severe – it feels like buckets coming down. My grandmother would say 'it's raining scissors'. I think the weather has changed a lot – we had the Chaitén volcano that erupted a few years ago. I think it's changed the weather long-term and I think we're going to keep seeing that maybe in decades unfortunately.

What about climate change in general? Do you think that has affected the weather – not just the volcano?

The summers have been very very hot, hotter than usual. Some my cousins complain the winters are colder so I definitely would put it down to climate change because it's just erratic – it just doesn't make sense.

My name is Carol, I want to tell you something about the winter in Shenyang. It's basically, bitterly cold, so the temperature in winter can drop down to minus 30 degrees. So when you breathe, you know, basically your breath can form a layer of like, frost, particularly when you wear facial mask. Some people get frostbite on their hands and their toes. You know, you have to wear a lot. It snows a lot as well. The spring usually starts from, I would say, April and then it can be really really windy. Basically the wind blows everything, dust, everything - you can taste sand in your mouth. The summer can be really really hot. The heat really really hits you. It's like when you come out of an air-conditioned room or building and then you're hit by this heatwave – it's basically like you are in an oven. I think climate change has caused more wind storms because it happens more and more, compared to maybe twenty, thirty years ago. Now, it's getting worse and worse basically, and it's lasting longer as well, so I think there is a factor of climate change. This is definitely a global thing, I mean people can, you know, feel it everywhere.