3.1 Language and Speech – Пого́да (Weather)

Посмотри́те видео!

Before reading ahead, watch this short video and see if you can figure it out just by watching and listening. I bet you can.

[VIDEO]

Weather is the one topic that always unites people who are in the same place. Everyone tends to be affected by it and seems to have an opinion about it. It is a safe and common topic that people really like to talk about.

[VIDEO]

Let’s look at a few phrases to describe the weather. A lot of these words will be new (see your Словарь). The word for ‘today’ is сего́дня (pronounced [siVODnja], like the ‘г’ in его). The descriptive words shown here all end in -o and this ending does not change.

To say ‘It feels ______ today,’ you can very simply say:

	Сего́дня прия́тно. “It’s pleasant / nice today.”
	Сего́дня хо́лодно! “It’s cold today.”
	Сего́дня жа́рко! “It’s hot today.”
	Сего́дня тепло́. “It’s warm today.”
	Сего́дня ду́шно. “It’s humid / stuffy / oppressive today.”

You can switch up the word order, add emphasis with очень ‘very’ and так ‘so’, or negate.

	Очень хо́лодно сего́дня! “It’s so cold today!”
	Сего́дня так жа́рко. “It’s really hot today.”

Since we are talking about the weather and our cities and countries, we might also find ourselves wanting to talk about these things at different times of the year. This turns out to be another very simple task in Russian if you know the words.

	весно́й ‘in the spring’
	ле́том ‘in the summer’
	о́сенью ‘in the fall’
	зимо́й ‘in the winter’

Например

	Весно́й в Росси́и хо́лодно, но прия́тно. ‘Spring in Russia is cold but nice.’
	Ле́том в Росси́и тепло́ и краси́во. ‘Russia is the summer is warm and beautiful.’
	О́сенью в Росси́и прохла́дно и о́чень краси́во. It’s cool and beautiful in Russia in the fall.
	Зимо́й в Росси́и о́чень хо́лодно. ‘In Russia it’s very cold in the winter.’