What this is about
Weather runs on two verbs you already own — fazer and estar — plus a family of "lazy verbs" (chover, nevar) that only exist in the 3rd person. Weather talk is Brazil's universal ice-breaker, so this grammar pays social dividends immediately.
The three patterns
| 1 · FAZER + noun | Faz calor. · Faz frio no inverno. · Ontem fez 40 graus! |
| 2 · ESTAR + adjective/noun | Está quente. · Está nublado. · Está sol. |
| 3 · weather verbs | Chove muito aqui. · Está chovendo! · Choveu ontem. |
CHOVER — the laziest verb in Portuguese
Nobody rains, so chover has no eu/você/nós forms. Its whole life:
| chove | it rains (habit) — Chove muito no verão. |
| está chovendo | it's raining right now |
| choveu | it rained — Choveu ontem à noite. |
| chovia · vai chover | it used to rain / was raining · it's going to rain |
Small talk — the weather toolkit
| Que calor! · Que frio! | Que + noun = "how hot/cold it is!" |
| Acho que vai chover. | achar que = the opinion opener |
| A previsão é de chuva. · Leva o guarda-chuva! | forecast says rain · take the umbrella! |
| Esqueci o guarda-chuva em casa! | the eternal sentence |
Exceptions & details
1 · Está frio vs Estou com frio: the day is cold vs I FEEL cold — different subjects, different sentences.
2 · Seasons take the article: no verão, no inverno, na primavera, no outono.
3 · fazer for temperature: Fez 40 graus — and Brazilians discuss graus constantly. 25°C in Rio is "friozinho".
Practise this chapter
10 pool questions plus generated ones — 20 fresh practice questions, reshuffled every visit, inside the grammar library.
Practise Weather with fazer, chover & achar — 20 questions →This chapter is taught in Lição 15 of the course (level A2). Rumo is a complete Brazilian Portuguese course, A1 to B2; level A1 is free.