Week 18

In the final week, get essential vocabulary to talk about the weather. Learn how to make
predictions using “will”, “might” and “going to”, and the superlative form of the most common
adjectives.

English Grammar: Will, Might, Going To

English Conversations: Weather
English Grammar: Superlatives

Lesson 1

English Grammar: Will, Might, Going To

We can use “will”, “might” and “going to” to make predictions in English. We often do this when
we talk about the weather, for example.

Will and might

Both “will” and “might” are modal auxiliary verbs. This means that they are followed by the
infinitive of the verb without “to”:

“It will rain later.” (Not “it will to rain…”)

“It might rain later.”
(For more information on how to use modal auxiliary verbs, see our page on can.)
We use “will” when we are sure that something will happen.
“It will be sunny later.” (100% probability)

We use “might” when something is less sure.

“It might rain later. Take an umbrella with you.” (50% probability)

The negative forms are:

“It won’t…”
“It won’t snow until December.”

“It might not…”

“It might not be sunny at the beach.”
Going to
We can use the verb “going to” (in the Present continuous tense) to talk about things that will
happen because we can see evidence now.

“I think it’s going to rain.” (I can see black clouds.)

“I think we are going to have a storm.” (The temperature is hot, there’s no wind, and I can see
black clouds.)

To use this in the negative, either say “I don’t think…” or “It isn’t going to…”

“I don’t think it’s going to rain.”

“It isn’t going to get hotter next week.”

Lesson 2

English Conversations: Weather

You can experience all types of weather in the UK – and sometimes all on the same day! Here’s
our guide to English vocabulary about the weather – and ways that we talk about it.

Using it’s and there

We often use “It’s” as the subject of a sentence about weather:

With an adjective: It’s hot today.

With a verb: It’s raining again.

We can use “There” with a noun

There will be more snow later.

There’s a lot of fog about.

(It’s = it is)
Weather adjectives
Here are some common adjectives to describe weather.

sunny (when there’s a lot of sunshine): “It’s sunny today

hot: “I like hot weather.”

cold: “We have cold winters in the UK.”

mild = when the weather isn’t cold: “Spring is usually a mild season.”

fine = a word to mean “nice” when we describe the weather: “It will be a fine, sunny day.”

windy = when there’s a lot of wind: “Be careful when you go out. It’s very windy.”

wet = when it rains a lot: “The roads are wet. Take care.”

dry = when there’s no rain: “It’s going to be a long, dry summer.”

cloudy: “Today will be cloudy.”

overcast = when the sky is completely grey: “It’s overcast and depressing today.”

misty = when there is low cloud in the morning: “It’s quite misty this morning.”
 foggy = when you can’t see in front of you because there is low clouds: “It’s foggy
today in the mountains.”

frosty = when it freezes overnight and the grass, etc is icy and white: “It’s going to be frosty
tomorrow morning.”

icy = when it freezes and water turns to ice: “Road conditions are icy this morning.”

stormy: “You can expect stormy weather in winter.”

Weather verbs
raining: “It’s raining again.”
“It always rains in summer here””

(“rainy” is also an adjective: “It’s a rainy day.”)

snowing: “It’s snowing hard. Let’s go and build a snowman!”

“It usually snows in the winter here.”

Weather nouns

rain: “We expect rain later.”

You can also say “light rain”, “heavy rain”, or “showers” (rain that only lasts for a few minutes.)
sunshine = “The weather forecast says there’ll be sunshine later.”

fog: “I don’t like driving in fog.”

mist: “There’s often some mist in the early morning.”

ice: “Be careful of the ice on the roads.”

snow: We had lots of snow last winter.

clouds = there are different types of clouds, such as rain clouds, snow clouds and storm clouds.

floods = when there’s too much rain and the fields or roads are covered in water: “Last winter
there were lots of floods.”

The adjective is “flooded”: “All the roads are flooded.”

The verb is “to flood”: “The river flooded twice last year.”

storm = when you get heavy rain and strong winds, and maybe also thunder (noise) and
lightning (electricity).

Other typical English weather vocabulary

strong wind = when there is a lot of force or power in the wind

cold snap = when it is cold for a period of time

dry spell = when it is dry for a period of time

sunny spell = when it is sunny for a period of time

partly cloudy = when there is both cloud and sunshine

a heatwave = when it is hotter than usual, for a long period of time

high temperatures (rising temperatures) = when it is hot

low temperatures (falling temperatures) = when it is cold

above / below freezing = when the temperature is above 0C or below 0C.

We also say “minus”. For example -2C is “minus two”.

Lesson 3

English Grammar: Superlatives

When we want to compare two things in English, we use a comparative form. (See our English
grammar page on comparatives for explanations and examples.)
But we can also use a superlative form of an adjective to differentiate one thing or person from
others.

For example, to talk about the ages of three people:

Tony is 33, Susanna is 32, Deborah is 30.

Susanna is older than Deborah, but Tony is the oldest of all three.

Susanna is younger than Tony, but Deborah is the youngest of all three.
Look at the table below to see how we form comparative and superlative forms of three different
types of adjective:
One-syllable adjectives
These are short adjectives like nice, hot, cheap, cold, etc.

Adjectives ending with -y

These are adjectives such as lovely, pretty, funny, etc. When an adjective ends with -y, the
comparative form replaces the -y with -ier, and the superlative form replaces it with -iest.)

Two or more syllable adjectives

These are adjectives with two or more syllables, such as boring (bor – ing), difficult (di – ffi –
cult).

Irregular adjectives
Be careful with these adjectives:

good (comparative – better; superlative – the best)

bad (comparative – worse; superlative – the worst)
far (comparative – further; superlative – the furthest)

Practice
Look at the list of holiday activities, then choose the best answer in the quiz.
 Playing board games (like monopoly, scrabble, chess, etc)
Advantage: it doesn’t cost anything
Disadvantage: a game can take hours!

Going windsurfing
Advantage: it’s fun
Disadvantage: it’s expensive (you need a teacher and equipment) and it’s difficult

– Going for a drive (getting in the car and driving around)

– Going for a meal in a restaurant
– Going for a walk in the countryside
– Sunbathing (lying in the sun on the beach to get a suntan)
– Visiting a museum
– Writing holiday postcards