HAPPY WINTER SOLSTICE! WELCOME TO THE COLD SEASON

 - Click on the link for winter vocabulary: Winter is coming! 

Retirement anniversary today, 2 years ago.

SUMMER IDIOMS FOR SUMMER HOLIDAYS + BEACH & HOT WEATHER VOCABULARY

June ends, the summer is here with its holidays, and here summer idioms, beach and barbecue vocabulary and a song full of optimism to celebrate. Enjoy the holidays!

Video "WALKING ON SUNSHINE", Katrina & The Waves.

WINTER IS COMING... (COLD WEATHER WORDS, WINTER IDIOMS & PHRASAL VERBS)

 

WEATHER IDIOMS

 

WAYS TO SAY IT'S COLD... (Welcome back!)

Although I'm not going, all the best for the rest of the school year... and as it's cold, here are some ways of expressing how you might feel.

Keep your spirits up!

GROUNDHOG DAY

What will Phil, the groundhog, predict? The arrival of spring or is the winter still staying for a few more weeks? Today's the day, when this American tradition takes place in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, a groundhog emerges from his burrow and if it's cloudy, the spring season will arrive early but if it's sunny and the animal sees its shadow, winter will persist six more weeks. See what happens today... 

Previous GROUNDHOG DAY posts HERE.

WEATHER vs CLIMATE

Difference in meaning between weather & climate.

EXTREME WEATHER, THE CLIMATE CHANGE: EXTREME COLD vs EXTREME HOT WEATHER

English idioms to express extreme cold or hot weather in two charts.

IT'S RAINING AGAIN...

Here are different ways to say it's raining, depending on how it does.

TALKING ABOUT THE WEATHER

Today's topic is the weather. Here are expressions and structures used to ask about the weather and give explanation of what's it like.

Questions about the weather:

• What's it like out(side)?
• How's the weather?
• What's the weather like?
• What's the temperature?
• What's the weather forecast?  (What is the weather expected to be like?)
• Is it hot or cold?
• Is it sunny?
• Is it raining?
• Beautiful day, isn’t it?

Some answers to describe weather:

• Today it is warm and sunny out.
• It’s so cold out there!
• The sun is very bright today, you might want to take sunglasses.
• It’s not raining, but it is cloudy.
• It is! I’m so happy the sun is shining.
• They’re saying blue skies and hot!  
• It's freezing outside!
• It's a bit chilly. Wrap up warm.
• It's Arctic out there.
• It's quite fresh - take a jumper.
• You can see your breath in the air.
• It's below zero.
• It must be minus five or more.
• It's pretty frosty today.

Structures for talking about weather:

One common mistake learners make when talking about the weather is mixing up the noun, adjective and verb forms of weather words.

Example: 

What's the weather like?
It is sun. Incorrect
It is sunny. Correct
The sun is shining. Correct

LLANFAIRPWLLGWYNGYLLGOGERYCHWYMDROBWILLLLANTYSILIOGOGOGOCH

While we wait to start off the new school year, let's begin with a funny curiosity. The title of this post is nothing strange... It's not exactly English, but Welsh. It's the village with the longest name in Britain and in the whole world with 51 letters (considering ch and ll as digraphs in Welsh, so single letters). You can see in the photos above, the name and where the village is on the map.

which means: Parish [church] of [St.] Mary (Llanfair) [in] Hollow (pwll) of the White Hazel [township] (gwyn gyll) near (go ger) the rapid whirlpool (y chwyrn drobwll) [and] the parish [church] of [St.] Tysilio (Llantysilio) with a red cave ([a]g ogo[f] goch).

but if you want to hear it being pronounced, here's a video of a weatherman on British TV saying the name correctly live on the weather forecast.

Video:

By the way you can also check on the weather vocabulary once again.

CLINES IN LANGUAGE LEARNING

What is a cline?
The British Council Teaching English website defines a cline as ‘a scale of language items that goes from one extreme to another, for example, from positive to negative, or from weak to strong’.Clines can be very effective in clarifying language, giving a very visual representation of meaning. They are very versatile and can be used for vocabulary or grammar.

The examples of clines you can see here were taken from the blog Recipes for the EFL classroom. Above this text: temperature vocabulary. Below: adverbs of frequency:

- Expressing likes and dislikes:

- Feelings: degrees of hunger.