Finnish for foreigners beginners course. Lesson 6: The weather
In this lesson you will learn some useful phrases about the weather for making small talk with your Finnish friends and neighbours
Aurinko paistaa / The sun is shining
Finnish people are not famous for making small talk, but they love to talk about the weather. It is always a good topic for conversation.
Summer weather
On a beautiful summer day you can open a conversation by saying:
Tänään on hyvä sää. - The weather is good today.
Aurinko paistaa. - The sun is shining.
On lämmintä. - It is warm.
If you want to tell the temperature, you need the word 'astetta' - degrees (aste in partitive case).
On 20 astetta lämmintä. - It is 20 degrees.
Sometimes you can even say: On tosi kuuma. - It is really hot.
If the temperature rises above 25 degrees, you can use the word helle. On helle.
Winter weather
In winter you will need words like kylmä (cold), lumi or lunta (snow), pakkanen or pakkasta (sub zero temperatures). Here are some examples:
Tänään on tosi kylmä. It is really cold today.
Sataa lunta. It is snowing.
On 20 astetta pakkasta. Or: on miinus 20 astetta. It is minus 20 degrees.
In Finnish language there are many words for snow, for example pyry and tuisku . If it is snowing heavily, you have many ways to say it, for example:
Pyryttää or onpa kova tuisku. They both mean: 'It is snowing heavily'.
There is even a special word for a pile of snow: kinos. When we get a lot of snow, you can say: 'On korkeat kinokset'.
Autumn weather
In autumn it rains a lot. If you don’t like rain or wind you can say:
On huono sää. The weather is bad.
On pilvistä, tuulee ja sataa. It is cloudy and windy and it is raining.
In late autumn rain turns into sleet. That means it rains and snows at the same time. Many people say then:
Onpa kamala sää! - What terrible weather it is!
Well done! Now you know how to make Finnish small talk. Try it next time you meet your Finnish friend or your neighbour!
Multimedia materials
Now you can watch my video: