Speaking English - How to talk about the weather

Oh man, hi James, it's really chilly here, it's fall in Canada, freezing, hold on a second,

speak it out.

I'm going to teach you about weather, sometimes, I mean, it's easy, hot and cold, rainy, yeah,

that's what we say, hot, cold, rainy.

Welcome to Canada, in Canada we have four seasons and each is so distinct and so different,

they have words, unique words for each one and what I want to do now, today, is go through

the four seasons and give you about two to three words for each one so when you come

to Canada, you can sound like you know what you're talking about because in Canada, there's

only two real seasons, it's too damn hot and it's too damn cold and then the rest, okay?

Let's go to the board.

All right, so, first thing we want to do is, okay, Ezekiel is ready for winter, he's a

little early this year, it's not quite winter time but that's okay, it's okay, okay?

So we have four seasons, I told you the four, okay, so let's start at the top.

We have spring, how about we have a pen that works, we have spring, okay, we have, what's

next, summer, we have winter, no, we don't have winter, we have fall and then we have

winter, okay?

So those are the four seasons of the year that we actually have.

Now, in each it has a unique, each one has a unique weather pattern that we can actually

rely on every year.

Now, depending on where you are in the world, it may not sound similar to where you are

but these are, you know, what we experience and these are some of the words that we commonly

use to describe how we're feeling about the weather or to describe the weather.

Now, for instance, our country is very weird, we get a lot of water but the water doesn't

come down as rain all the time, so if you're from the south like Mexico, Chile or parts

of Africa, you get water, we get snow, okay, snow you might have heard of but not seen

but that's really cool.

But let's start here at the best, the best time of the year.

Now, one of the things we get in spring is we get a little bit, when we sometimes, it

comes down, we get a little bit of, it's sometimes a little damp, you go, "What's damp?"

Remember I talked about water, well, it means there's sort of water in the air, so the air

is kind of cool, even though it's nice and sunny and there's a big sun out, it's a bit

damp so you can almost feel a little bit of water on your skin, it feels cool, right?

But it's nice, it's nice.

Here's another word, cool.

Depending on where you are from the world, cool is like cool, cool means not cold because

a lot of people say it's cold, it's not cold.

It's like, you can wear a shirt, I say it's light a lot, like I'm 15 years old, I'm not,

okay, trust me, I may be beautiful but I'm not 15.

Cool as in you would need a jacket but not a big jacket, a light jacket, okay, so it's

cool but it's nice because you can walk outside.

When I get to the other parts of the weather, you'll understand why for us that's nice,

alright?

So we can say it's cool.

Here's another one we like to say in the springtime because the spring is new, it's unique, it

brings life.

Can you smell it?

It's springtime, you know, bunnies jumping around.

So we like to say when it's outside, we say it's brisk because when we say brisk it's

like a walk, a walk that makes you feel good, well the air is fresh, it's clean and it's

just brisk, wakes you up, it's invigorating.

Look at that one for vocabulary, invigorate, okay?

So we say it's brisk outside and when they say it's brisk, they put a smile on their

face.

It means it's windy and it's cold but it feels good, see I'm not really smiling, I'm pretending

to smile, okay?

I'm pretending to smile because it is nice, it does feel good but it's a little bit cool

and these are the three we have here, damp, cool and brisk.

But because it's springtime, we go woohoo, yay, big smile because it's the beginning

of a new year, okay?

Now let's move into the summer.

Summer is hot.

We take off our shirts, see I'm taking off my shirt, I show you my chest, yes, no hair,

see no hair.

Okay, that's all I'm doing, this is not a strip club, okay?

We say summertime, summer is cool, right?

Summer in the city, hot in my neck, back of the neck feeling cold and gritty, it's a song.

So the summer, it gets really, really hot and if you live in the city, the air feels

heavy, really heavy and we can say when it gets hot and you start to, you know, a little,

you know, it's muggy, muggy outside.

Now you're probably going what the hell does muggy mean?

Well mug by itself is a noun which is a big cup that you drink coffee from, big, heavy.

Coffee is hot, first hint.

Mug, in Canada and America, if you get mugged, it means somebody comes up and they get really

close to you and they put a knife towards you and they give me your money, like Ezekiel,

give me your money.

So they mug you, but they mug you from close, they're really close, here's my wallet.

So when it's muggy, it's hot and the heat is close to your body, so it's muggy, okay?

So we say it's really mug, muggy.

Now here's another thing that happens in the summertime, we say muggy, sometimes when it's

the sun, okay, let me explain.

Have you ever looked outside and it's hot, really hot and then you look at the road and

the road seems to have, like it's moving ever so slightly, see I'm trying to hypnotize you,

but the road looks like it's moving, well we say it's kind of hazy, which means there's

so much heat it seems to affect the way we see things.

So we usually say it's muggy and hazy outside, so it's really hot and it's making the sky

and that look a little different, okay?

So we say muggy and hazy, so hazy means there seems to be something outside that makes it

look a little, I don't know, it's not clear.

So you've got the feeling of the heat changing the way we see and the heat changing the way

we feel, right?

So let's do the third one.

The third one is, ah, do you remember I talked about rain, do you remember I talked about

rain, rain coming from the sky, well in the summer it's really weird because yes you know

rain, I'm going to give you two words, in the summer sometimes we get a huge amount

of rain coming down at one time, huge.

Now you know storm, you probably know tsunami and hurricane, but sometimes we've got a lot

of rain coming down and there's no thunder or anything, we call that a downpour.

When the downpour comes the rain can come down so much you can't even see in front of

you, okay?

And then when we do that we call it a downpour, and that's for water, downpour, and that's

for rain, heavy rain.

So let me just write that for you again, so a downpour, see that, downpour is for heavy

rain, when it's raining a lot, okay?

Now another one that happens, and this one's really bizarre because sometimes in the summertime,

you won't believe this, but little pieces of ice come down from the sky and hit you,

sometimes they're tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, like a piece of sand,

and sometimes they're like this big, like golf balls, and they come down hard, I mean

really hard, terribly hard, this is called hail, and it's really weird because when it

comes down, it comes down hard, heavy, and it's snow in the middle of the summertime

where it can be 90 degrees, it's bizarre, okay?

So we can say it's hailing, and it goes hail, yeah, and you go, it's like little pieces

of ice hitting the window, and it's the middle of the summer, I promise, I'm not lying, gotta

come to Canada, it's a beautiful country.

Let's go to fall, okay, fall, well, once again, let's talk about water.

The fall is really, really weird because, well, it seems to rain a lot, but unlike the

summer where you get downpours, we don't get a downpour as per se, what we get is drizzle,

the sky is grey, and it drizzles all the time, think about England, 24/7, all the time, Canada,

in the fall.

I like it because the leaves change color and it looks beautiful, it's like cherry blossom

season in spring for Japanese people, but, you know, there's beautiful reds in that,

but it's drizzling, so you walk out every day, imagine grey, every day, rain, not enough

to use an umbrella, no, no, no, no, not enough for an umbrella, but just enough to get you

wet all the time, and we call that drizzle, it's drizzling.

Little pieces of rain coming down all the time, okay?

Here's another weird thing, fall in this country is not quite cold, very, very extremely cold,

nor is it extremely hot, but at the beginning of the day and at the end of the day, the

two temperatures kind of meet, because sometimes it's a little bit warm, so we've got warm

air meeting cold air, and what we have is we get fog.

Fog is when water is in the air, and it's so thick in the air that it actually, it doesn't

get you wet, but you can't see in front of yourself, like, it's like there's this mist

in front of you, and you can walk through, in fact, you can actually cut it, and drink

it, I'm joking, you cannot cut fog, but it feels like it, because you can put your hand

and do this, and feel the fog, okay?

If you know anything about Sherlock Holmes, they always take place on foggy fields in

England, okay?

But that happens in Canada, so we say it's foggy out.

Now, the fog, okay, so we're just going to separate summer from fall.

The fog, we say foggy, okay?

It's foggy out.

That can happen in the night, night time, at night, because the temperature drops, and

the earth is warm, or in the day time, when the earth is cool, and it's getting warmer

out, okay?

So we have fog there.

Now, one last one I want to talk about is, this, ah, let's see if I have room for you.

Chilly, chilly, chilly means, well, here we said it's cool, but it's nice.

It's nice enough you can wear a shirt, but you wouldn't wear a t-shirt, because it's

cool.

When it's chilly, we're like, oh, it's not quite comfortable cold, okay?

You're not comfortable, so you might put on a heavier coat or sweater, okay?

So when it's chilly, you're like, a little cold here, I need a little bit more, alright?

More than I would wear in the springtime.

See here, see in the summer, in the spring you're smiling, in the summer, you're happy.

That's a big toothy grin, see?

Okay?

Here you got winded hair, because it's nice, it's growing, summer, you got afro, okay?

Here, in Canada, like this, okay?

Not so happy, because chilly isn't as nice as cool, yeah?

So finally, we have one more to do.

This is the winter of our discontent.

Welcome to Canada, we usually say this in wintertime, because the first thing people

usually say when they get off the plane, especially from sunny places across the world, they'll

get off the plane, they'll come down, they're wearing their shorts, they go, ah, it's freezing.

Yeah, welcome to Canada, it's freezing out.

Remember, I said this only two times in Canada, we usually talk about the heat, because it's

really hot, we usually talk about the cold, because it's really cold, freezing, okay?

Now, freezing leads to something else, remember we talked about moisture, we said, well, there

are different forms, every season has a different form of water, remember damp, water in the

air, here you get downpours, here it's in the air but it's cold, kind of like what's

called a blizzard.

Now, if you've read your comic books, like your Uncle Jamesy does, there was a villain

named the blizzard, power to freeze things.

There's also, if I recall, a game, some gamer who's called Blizzard, Blizzard means when

a lot of snow is coming down, okay, so storm, think of a rain storm, a lot of rain coming

down and thunder and lightning, think of the same thing with white stuff coming down, lots

and lots of it.

One nice thing about blizzards though, the temperature is usually, see, now I'm going

to be a weatherman, the temperature is usually above zero, not too much, but a little bit

above zero, maybe two, three degrees, or maybe even at zero, it's not too cold, but a lot

of snow comes down, okay?

So blizzards are kind of good, kind of bad for winter in Canada, means the temperature

is not so cold, because believe me, it gets down to minus 40 here, and we don't say this,

freezing, we say it's effing cold outside, but I won't tell you that, another lesson,

okay?

See the Christian Bengel video for that one, alright?

So that's freezing.

What we do have here is blizzard.

So blizzard, you know, when the snow is coming down, a lot, it's a blizzard, like a rain

storm, and la pièce de résistance, the best weather, not the best, the worst weather Canada

has to offer is, you're going to say, what is this?

Well, this is white, this is out.

If you look at the box, there's nothing there, okay, look, see, you can't see, there's nothing

in there.

When we have whiteouts, you can't see anything, it is white.

The blizzard is the baby of the whiteout.

When the whiteout happens, literally, you see like a piece of paper, white, in front

of you, and you go, I'm not going to work today, or ever again, until the spring comes,

when it is nice and cool, and brisk.

Cool?

You like that?

Well, Ezekiel is ready for the winter, oh, one second, now he's ready for the winter,

I have to get going, because it's fall, fall leads to winter, so I've got to split, get

out of here, so, I hope you enjoyed our lesson, spring, remember, it's a bit damp, which isn't

so great, but it's nice, cool, and brisk, which brings you alive, summer, it's hot,

but it can be muggy, a little hazy, sometimes if it's too hot, watch out for the downpours,

and the hail, put your car in the garage, right, you're going to get hit by the hailstones,

fall, drizzle means a little bit of water coming down all the time, with the grey skies,

chilly, meaning cold, you're going to need a jacket for sure, and it can be foggy in

the morning, and in the winter, watch out because it's freezing, so you're going to

have to buy boots, a scarf, and hats, or in Canada, that's called a toque, boys and girls,

can you say toque?

I don't know where that word comes from, but it's a toque, okay, if it's a whiteout, stay

home, better yet, stay in your country, turn on your computer, go to www.engvid.com, what

do you mean engvid?

Well, let me put it on the board for you, okay, because if it's a whiteout, there's

no point in going anywhere, so you might as well stay home and go to www.engvid.com, where

you'll find myself and other teachers who will be happy to help you, teach you about

spring, summer, fall, and winter, and there's a song with that, but I'm not singing, if

you get lucky, I'll sing again, spring, summer, winter, oh, bye, see you.