Weather: Grammar & Phonics (AQA GCSE German): Revision Note

• To talk about the weather in German, two grammar points are essential: impersonal weather expressions and the ability to use them across different tenses

• Let's look at these in more detail

Impersonal weather expressions

• In German, weather is described using impersonal structures

• These always use es (it) as the subject - never ich, du or any other pronoun

• There are two main patterns:

es ist + adjective - use this to describe what the weather is like:

es + verb - use this when the weather itself is doing something:

Weather in different tenses

• Weather can come up in all four exam skills, and questions often ask you to describe or understand the weather in the past, present and future

• You need to be able to switch between tenses confidently
  

• Present tense - use es ist + adjective or es + verb (as above):

• Past tense - use the imperfect tense of sein to describe what the weather was like with an adjective, as this sounds more natural than the perfect tense in this context

• For weather verbs, use the perfect tense:

• Future tense - use werden + infinitive to say what the weather will be like

• Werden is conjugated and the infinitive goes to the end of the clause:

• Comparatives - weather descriptions often use comparatives, for example when comparing seasons or regions

• Add -er to the adjective, and use als for than and so … wie for as … as:

Weather: phonics

• In German, the letter w is pronounced like the English v sound, never like the English w

  • Wetter

  • warm

  • Wind

  • Winter

  • wird

  • war