# 很 / 下 (weather)



## scotty_le_b

Why when you say it is cold you use hen but when it is raining you use xia? What words do you use hen for and what words do you use xia for?


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## Ghabi

Hi Scotty. hen3 很 serves as a kind of "dummy" copula in Chinese. People usually don't say *jin1tian1 re3 今天熱. Instead, they put hen3 in between: jian1tian1 hen3 re4 今天很熱 "It's hot today". We use it with adjectives like re3 "hot", leng3 冷 "cold" and chao3shi1 潮濕 "humid".

On the other hand, xia4 下 is followed by nouns like yu3 雨 "rain", xue3 雪 "snow" and bao2 雹 "hail". And there's no dummy subject as in English. For example, wai4mian4 xia4yu2 le 外面下雨了 "[it's] raining outside".


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## scotty_le_b

So to say sunny you would use hen and for a noun like a blizzard you would use xia.


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## airygirl

scotty_le_b said:


> So to say sunny you would use hen and for a noun like a blizzard you would use xia.


Yes, you can say like that.  it means:天气很晴朗　and　下暴雪． Usually we use hen很　to modify adjetives and xia下 to modify nouns when talking about weather.


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## gpu

下 is a verb which means to precipitate or to drop. 雨 or 雪 is a noun here which means the rain or the snow.

Perhaps in this way you can understand why in Chinese we say 下雨 and 下雪. In a word, just consider 下雨=to rain, and 下雪=to snow. 

For 热, it is an adjective. In Chinese we say 天热 which mean it is hot. Please note that we usually omit the verb "is" in this sentence. If you want to say "it is *very* hot" in Chinese, it should be "天*很*热" where 很 means "very" which is an adverb.

Some examples,

天*很*热 = it is *very* hot weather.
外面*很*热 = it is *very* hot outside.
外面在*下雨* = it is *rain*ing outside.
外面雨下得*很大*=it is raining* heavily* outside.
外面在下*大雨*=it is *a heavy rain* outside.


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## Ghabi

If you take 外面很热 as "it is very hot outside", then one would think that "it is hot outside" must be *外面热, but that's not true. As said above, the hen3 here serves like a copula, or a filler, or whatever one likes to call it, to link the two parts of the utterance, without the meaning of "very".


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## gpu

Ghabi said:


> If you take 外面很热 as "it is very hot outside", then one would think that "it is hot outside" must be *外面热, but that's not true. As said above, the hen3 here serves like a copula, or a filler, or whatever one likes to call it, to link the two parts of the utterance, without the meaning of "very".



you can say 天热/天气热/热天

Just keep it simple. Beginners may get lost as you tell them 很 does not mean "very".

well, here is another example,

别开窗，外面热！


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## Ghabi

gpu said:


> Just keep it simple. Beginners may get lost as you tell them 很 does not mean "very".


The condescension is uncalled-for. We don't need to dumb down anything. We just need to try to explain to the OP how hen3 is actually used. To do otherwise is only misleading. Actually few things are more misleading than saying that hen3 means "very". This has been discussed before, for example, in this post.


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## wangyijie

Ghabi said:


> If you take 外面很热 as "it is very hot outside", then one would think that "it is hot outside" must be *外面热, but that's not true. As said above, the hen3 here serves like a copula, or a filler, or whatever one likes to call it, to link the two parts of the utterance, without the meaning of "very".


I think the word 很 [hen3] which is used in sentences like 今天外面很热 (it's hot outside today) is more likely a moderator of rhythm, because chinese words are mostly combined by 2 characters which separate the sentence 今天外面很热 like this:

今天 - 外面 - 很热。

That's why when we'll feel strange when someone says 今天外面热, because it breaks the rhythm by saying just a 热, like:

今天 - 外面 - 热。

So in my opinion 很 is considered like a moderator of rhythm to make the sentence balanced 


gpu said:


> 外面在*下雨* = it is *rain*ing outside.
> 外面雨下得*很大*=it is raining* heavily* outside.
> 外面在下*大雨*=it is *a heavy rain* outside.


As for 下, I think gpu is correct


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## Ghabi

wangyijie said:


> So in my opinion 很 is considered like a moderator of rhythm to make the sentence balanced


Yes of course, we can call it "moderator of rhythm" or "filler" or anything. I'm happy as along as it's not glossed as "very".


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## indigoduck

Ghabi said:


> Yes of course, we can call it "moderator of rhythm" or "filler" or anything. I'm happy as along as it's not glossed as "very".


 
It's true. I have to admit words like "rhythm", "filler" can complicate things although that might be it's technical function in a sentence.

When i see 很 as prefix, i interprete the meaning as "more intensive than normal" or if people like "very" (haha).

熱=hot
很熱=hotter than hot (very hot)

多=lots
很多= quantity that is more than lots ("very lots" if there is such thing)

大=big
很大=bigger than big (very big)


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## Ghabi

indigoduck said:


> When i see 很 as prefix, i interprete the meaning as "more intensive than normal" or if people like "very" (haha).


But it's more about hearing than seeing: the word hen3 can mean "very" if it's deliberately stressed; however, in utterances like 今天天氣很冷, hen3 is usually not stressed.


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## Martindehk

I DO agree with Ghabi.
It seems to be considerate to foreigners to simplify things, but "天氣熱" and "天氣很熱"; there are really situations in which the former is preferred to the latter, or vice versa.
For example, "天氣熱(時，)狗就會掉毛。"


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