Weather and seasons in Esperanto – words and phrases

In Esperanto, weather verbs have no subject: Pluvas is "It's raining", Neĝas "It's snowing" and Tondras "It's thundering". For conditions and temperature, estas is followed by an adverb: Estas varme "It's warm", Estas malvarme "It's cold". The four seasons are printempo, somero, aŭtuno, vintro. Pronunciation guides on this page show the stressed syllable in capitals; it is always the second-to-last (see the alphabet).

#The four seasons

Season names are ordinary nouns, written with a small letter (the months are traditionally capitalised). ReVo treats printempo as one root, although it ends in tempo "time". It dates the seasons by the Gregorian calendar: northern-hemisphere spring runs from about 21 March to 21 June, southern-hemisphere spring from about 23 September to 21 December.

#How do you say "in summer"?

The ending -e turns a noun into an adverb of time: somere, vintre, matene (see adverbs). Both somere and en la somero are correct. The Fundamento's own exercises, quoted in ReVo, even use en somero and en vintro without the article.

A time noun with the accusative -n and no preposition marks a point or a stretch of time (PMEG): la sekvan dimanĉon "the following Sunday", so pasintan vintron "last winter", la tutan vintron "all winter". The word ĉi means "this, near the speaker", and PMEG shows it in compounds such as ĉi-nokte "tonight" and ĉi-jara "of this year"; ĉi-vintre and ĉi-somere follow the same pattern.

#Weather words

The matching adjectives end in -a: suna tago "a sunny day", nuba "cloudy", sennuba "cloudless", pluva "rainy", neĝa "snowy", venta "windy", glacia "icy", seka "dry", malseka "wet", kota "muddy". With vetero use an ordinary adjective: bela vetero "nice weather".

#Weather verbs: no subject, no "it"

English needs a dummy it ("it rains"); Esperanto does not. PMEG says plainly not to use ĝi with such verbs: Hodiaŭ pluvas, not Ĝi pluvas hodiaŭ. It adds that the redundant ĝi in Zamenhof's Ĝi estis varmega posttagmezo has disappeared and counts as an error today. See pronouns.

The usual endings give the tenses (see verbs): Hieraŭ pluvis "It rained yesterday", Morgaŭ pluvos "It will rain tomorrow". Adverbs add force: Pluvas forte "It's raining hard", Neĝas multe "It snows a lot".

If something other than rain falls like rain, that thing becomes the subject, so it takes no -n: Pluvis ŝtonoj sur la tegmenton "Stones rained down on the roof". PMEG warns against ŝtonojn here.

#"It's warm": Estas varme

When estas has no real subject, the word that describes the situation is an adverb in -e, not an adjective (PMEG): Estas varme, not Estas varma. PMEG's own examples include Estas mallume "It is dark".

With a subject the adjective returns and agrees with it: La vetero estas varma "The weather is warm" (subject vetero), Estas bela vetero "It's nice weather" (the adjective belongs to vetero).

To say how you feel, use the verbs varmi and malvarmi, which ReVo defines as being or feeling warm and cold: Mi malvarmas "I am cold", Al mi varmas "I feel warm", Ĉu tro varmas? "Is it too warm?". Mi frostas means "I'm freezing"; ReVo defines frosti as to feel a freezing cold.

#Temperature

Say the number first, then gradoj ("one degree" is unu grado); see numbers. PMEG gives both ways to read a temperature sign: +10° is plus dek gradoj or dek gradoj super nulo, and −10° is minus dek gradoj or dek gradoj sub nulo.

The suffixes -eg- "stronger" and -et- "weaker" make a scale: malvarmega "very cold", malvarma "cold", malvarmeta "cool", varma "warm", varmega "hot". Change -a to -e for the weather sentence: Estas varmege "It's very hot".

ReVo says varma is traditionally a moderate, comfortable warmth, while varmega means unpleasantly hot, even burning. It adds that the dictionaries PV and PIV lost this nuance, which Russian and German-speaking Esperantists keep.

#Word building with weather roots

The suffix -er- names one piece of a mass, so neĝero is one flake of neĝo. The verb forms follow: pluveti "to drizzle", pluvegi "to pour". ReVo defines ombrelo itself as a portable shield against rain or sun, and pluvombrelo and sunombrelo say which. Be careful with "cold": malvarmo is low temperature, while malvarmumo is the illness. More in word building.

Verbs with -iĝ- "become" can also stand alone: Aŭtune pli kaj pli malvarmiĝas "In autumn it gets colder and colder", Vesperiĝas "Evening is falling".

#Talking about the weather

The last two sentences use the accusative: the season is the object of ŝatas, so it ends in -n.

#Common questions

#How do you say "It's raining" in Esperanto?

Pluvas. There is no word for "it": weather verbs have no subject, and PMEG says not to add ĝi. Past: Pluvis; future: Pluvos.

#How do you say "It's cold" or "It's hot" in Esperanto?

Estas malvarme and Estas varme; for very hot, Estas varmege. The word after estas is an adverb in -e.

#What are the seasons in Esperanto?

Printempo (spring), somero (summer), aŭtuno (autumn) and vintro (winter), all with a small letter.

#How do you say "in winter" in Esperanto?

Vintre or en la vintro. For "this winter" say ĉi-vintre, and for "last winter" pasintan vintron.

#How do you give the temperature in Esperanto?

Say the number and gradoj: Estas dek gradoj. For below zero, use minus dek gradoj or dek gradoj sub nulo.

#Sources

• PMEG: Sensubjektaj verboj (pluvi, neĝi, hajli, ŝtormi, frosti, fulmi, tondri)
• PMEG: Tria persono (no ĝi with subjectless verbs)
• PMEG: Uzo de E-vortoj (Estas mallume, Kritiki estas facile)
• PMEG: N por tempopunkto and N por mezuro
• PMEG: Dum
• PMEG: Ĉi (ĉi-nokte, la ĉi-jara somero)
• PMEG: Plus kaj minus (plus dek gradoj, dek gradoj sub nulo)
• ReVo: printempo, somero, aŭtuno, vintro, sezono
• ReVo: pluvo and derived words, neĝo, vento, nebulo, fulmo, tondri, hajlo
• ReVo: ŝtormo, uragano, frosto, glacio, nubo, vetero, suno
• ReVo: varma, malvarma and derived words, grado, ombrelo
• Tatoeba sentences (CC BY 2.0 FR), used as written: #2127737, #980568, #557222, #583328; shortened or adapted, and used to check usage: #13090664, #12313539, #2652792, #639494, #870840, #6380476