Talking about the weather in French (as with Spanish) is tricky. This is because French uses a variety of expressions and vocabulary.

You will need to study this in your course book but here is a reminder.

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1. Some expressions use the verb faire in the 3rd person singular.

e.g il fait froid, il fait chaud, il fait du soleil, il fait bon/mauvais temps, hier  il faisait gris,

demain il fera du vent, la semaine prochaine il va faire plus chaud etc

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2. Other expressions use il y a

eg. il y a du brouillard, il y a de la brume, il y a des orages. Some il fait expressions may also take il y a eg

il y a du soleil, il y a du vent. For past say il y avait and the future is il y aura. eg. ce matin il y avait des éclairs,

demain il y aura de la tonnerre etc

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Note: il y aura des éclaircies  (there will be sunny spells/clear weather)

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3. Weather involving "water" usually uses the verb!

eg pleuvoir, neiger, pleuviner, tronner

pleuvoir reminder: il pleut (present) il a plu (perfect) il pleuvait (imperfect) il pleuvra/va pleuvoir (future).

eg hier il a plu, demain il va neiger etc

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4. Sometimes the expression le temps est + an adjective is used. Eg le temps est nuageux, brumeux, ensoleillé etc

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5 You will need to conjugate faire, il y a, il est and the "weather verbs" in the different tenses. In the specific past

such as this morning/yesterday the perfect tends to be used rather than the imperfect but they can be interchangeable and you would certainly use the imperfect if you were saying what the weather "used to be like".

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Note: un temps de chien! Dreadful weather! Il pleut des cordes  It's pouring!

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Below is an adapted PowerPoint and some exercises.

Try listening to La météo on French TV but there will be some formal

geographical words like précipitation for rain, cyclones et anticyclones, and references to températures etc.

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