Learn the key pattern to talk about basic weather conditions
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| Let's take a closer look at the conversation. |
| Do you remember how Miki asks, |
| "How's the weather?" |
| てんきは どうですか。(Tenki wa dō desu ka.) |
| First is てんき, "weather." て-ん-き.てんき |
| Next is the particle, は, the topic-marking particle. は. |
| It marks "weather" as the topic of the sentence. Think of it like "as for" in the expression "as for the weather." |
| After this is the word, どう, meaning "how," in this context. どう. どう. |
| After this is です. In this case, it's like the "is" in "how is." で-す. です. |
| And last is か, the question-marking particle, which turns the sentence into a question. か. |
| All together, てんきはどうですか literally means, "As for the weather, how is?" but translates as "How's the weather?" |
| てんきはどうですか。(Tenki wa dō desu ka.) |
| Let's take a closer look at the response. |
| Do you remember how Karen says, |
| "It's rainy." |
| あめです。(Ame desu.) |
| First is あめ, "rain," あ-め. あめ。 |
| Next is です。In this case, it's like the like "is" in "it is." です。 |
| All together, あめです literally means "rain [it] is," but it translates as "It's rainy." あめです。 |
| This is the shortened version of てんきはあめです。(Tenki wa ame desu.) Literally, "As for the weather, it's rainy. てんきはあめです。 |
| The phrase てんきは, "As for the weather, …," is understood from the context of the conversation, so it is omitted. |
| All together, it's あめです(Ame desu), "It's rainy." |
| あめです。(Ame desu.) |
| The pattern is |
| {Weather} です。(desu.) |
| "It's {weather}." |
| {Weather} です。(desu.) |
| To use this pattern, simply replace {weather} with the local weather condition. |
| Imagine you're in Sapporo, and outside there is snow, ゆき. ゆ-き. ゆき。 |
| Say, "It's snowy." |
| Ready? |
| ゆきです。(Yuki desu.) |
| "It's snowy." |
| ゆきです。(Yuki desu.) |
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