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Hello and welcome to Six Minute Vocabulary. I'm Rob.

And I'm Catherine. And our topic today is weather. Now, Rob, apparently British people love to talk about the weather. Do you think that's true?

Absolutely. You know me. I'm talking about it all the time. Yeah, you do, actually. And in today's program, we'll look at some key weather vocabulary and show you how to use it in different types of sentences.

There will be a quiz and we'll give you a top tip to help you learn vocabulary more effectively.

So on with the show, and we'll start by listening to Harvey talking about the weather, where he lives, and we have a question for you at home.

So the question is, what is the weather like for Harvey in spring? I live in the north. I love it here, but the weather isn't too good. There's a lot of rain in the autumn and winter. In fact, it's raining right now. Sometimes it snows in the winter, in the spring, the weather's usually quite windy, but it's lovely and sunny in summer. So that's Harvey, and we asked you about the weather in spring.

What's it like?

Harvey said that the weather gets quite windy in spring. Well done. If you got that right. And we'll talk more about windy weather later. First, let's talk about the rain. Listen to this clip.

There's a lot of rain in the autumn and winter in this sentence, rain as a noun.

So we can say there is a lot of rain or we can add a main verb. For example, I like rain. Rob, how do you feel about rain right now?

I hate rain because I like to do a lot of cycling. And of course, when it rains, I get very wet. You do? Yes.

But the word rain can also be a verb. For example, it rains a lot here in London. In fact, look out the window. It's raining now.

It's always raining, always raining in London. And we can add a letter Y to the end of rain to make the A. rainy. Rob, do you use an umbrella on rainy days?

No, I don't. I wear a coat.

Yeah, more. More practical. More blokey. Well, blokey.

Okay, so that's the noun rain. The verb rain and the adjective rainy. The word snow works in the same way. Listen to this clip.

Sometimes it snows in the winter, sometimes it snows in winter. And the word snow.

There is a verb as a noun.

We can say sometimes there is snow or we can add the letter Y to make an adjective. Sometimes it's snowy. Good, right.

But now another clip. Here's Harvey talking about the weather in spring.

In the spring, the weather's usually quite windy. In the spring, the weather's usually quite windy in this sentence, Wendy is an adjective, and we can also use the word wind as a noun.

So is there much wind today, Catherine?

There's quite a lot, actually. I got quite blown around.

And so that's wind as a noun and windy as an adjective. But we can't use wind as a verb. You have to use a different verb like blow. So the wind is blowing very hard today. Right.

Okay. And the word sun is the same. It's a noun. The sun is hot. It can make an adjective. It's lovely and sunny, but it isn't a verb.

You need a different word for that.

The sun is shining even though it isn't six minutes vocabulary from BBC learning English.

And we're looking at whether words OK, it's quiz time. Are these sentences correct or wrong?

Are you ready for this? Number one, it's sunning today and that's wrong.

You can't say it's sunny because the sun isn't a verb. Instead, say it's sunny or the sun is shining.

OK, here's number two. There was a lot of snow last week, and that's correct. And here comes the last one. I don't like Windy, and that's also wrong.

Windy is an adjective.

So we need to add a noun, say I don't like windy weather or use wind as a noun and say I don't like wind.

And that's the end of the quiz. Well done. If you got those right.

And we've just got time for a top tip for learning vocabulary, haven't we, Catherine? We have Rob and this is it. When you learn a new word for the first time, you'll learn it more effectively if you use it a few times in the first 24 hours. So if you learn a new word in the morning, Rob, look it up again in the evening before you go to sleep. OK, I'll do that.

Thank you. OK, there's more about all this at BBC Learning English dot com.

So join us again soon for more six minute vocabulary. Bye bye.