Tenki in Japanese and its related expressions, explained in detail

How to say weather in Japanese

Japanese people would say “tenki”. It’s the Japanese word for ‘weather’. In this blog post, I will explain it in detail based on its kanji expression. And also, I will explain its related expressions which Japanese people often use. They quite often start a conversation with a wether related expression. So, my explanations would be helpful for Japanese learners. Let’s get started!

Contents

• Definition and meaning of tenki in Japanese
• Kanji characters used in tenki
• Example: how to use tenki
• Weather expressions in Japanese
  • Sunny
  • Cloudy
  • Rainy
  • Windy
  • Snowy
• Similar words
  • Tenko
  • Kiko
• And the rest

Definition and meaning of tenki in Japanese

First of all, let me start with the definition and meaning of “tenki” in Japanese.

• tenki – 天気 (てんき) : a noun meaning ‘weather’ in Japanese.

Its definition and meaning are quite simple and clear, I think. To understand it a bit more, however, let me explain its kanji characters in detail.

Kanji characters used in tenki

Below are the ones.

• ten – 天 (てん) : a kanji character widely used to mean ‘(the) sky’ or ‘(the) heaven’ in Japanese.
• ki – 気 (き) : a kanji character often used to mean ‘feeling’, ‘mood’, ‘mind’, ‘atmosphere’, ‘air’ or ‘spirit’ in Japanese. It can also be found in words like “heki” and “byouki“.

From these two kanji characters, we can understand that the word, “tenki”, literally means ‘a mood of the sky’ or ‘a feeling of the sky’. This means that in the Japanese language, the weather can be considered as a mood of the sky. Honestly, I really love this idea and kanji expression.

Example: how to use tenki

Below are the new words used in the example sentence.

• kyo – 今日 (きょう) : a noun meaning ‘today’ in Japanese.
• wa – は : a binding particle working as a case maker or topic maker. In the example sentence, it’s put after the noun, “kyo”, to give a topic.
• ga – が : a case particle put after a noun to make the subject word or the object word in a sentence. In the example, it’s put after the noun, “tenki”, to make the subject word in the sentence.
• warui – 悪い (わるい) : an i-adjective meaning ‘bad’ in Japanese. Learn more about “warui”.
• desu – です : an auxiliary verb put after a noun or adjective to make it polite. In the example sentence, it’s put after the i-adjective, “warui”, to make it sound polite.

This is a typical usage of “tenki”. Japanese people normally use it to mean ‘weather’ in Japanese. Depending on the situation and context, however, “tenki” itself can also mean ‘good weather’, ‘nice weather’ or perhaps ‘sunny’. So, we need to be a bit careful with the situation and context where it’s used.

For other weather conditions, Japanese people usually use proper weather expressions. In the next paragraphs, I will explain the very basic ones.

Weather expressions in Japanese

I will explain the very basic weather expressions as follows.

Sunny

Below is the new word used in the example.

• hare – 晴れ (はれ) : a noun, but often used like an adjective to mean ‘sunny’ in Japanese.

In Japanese, some nouns can be used like adjectives. “Hare” is one of them. So, Japanese people often use it like an adjective to mean ‘sunny’.

The sentence above is a typical Japanese expression for ‘it’s sunny’. As I already mentioned above, Japanese people often use the noun, “tenki”, to mean ‘a good day’ or ‘good weather’. So, “hare” is not always necessarily used.

Cloudy

Below is the new word used in the example.

• kumori – 曇り (くもり) : a noun, but often used like an adjective to mean ‘cloudy’ in Japanese.

Japanese people usually use the noun, “kumori”, in order to mean ‘cloudy’ in Japanese. Grammatically it’s a noun, but can also be used like an adjective like “hare”.

Rainy

Below is the new word used in the example.

• ame – 雨 (あめ) : a noun meaning ‘rain’ in Japanese. Yet, it’s often used like an adjective to mean ‘rainy’ in Japanese.

Japanese people often use the example sentence to mean ‘it’s rainy today’ or ‘it’s raining today’. Its latter part, “ame desu”, or its less polite form, “ame da”, can also be used to mean ‘it’s starting to rain’ in Japanese.

Windy

Below are the new words used in the example.

• kaze – 風 (かぜ) : a noun meaning ‘wind’ in Japanese.
• tsuyoi – 強い (つよい) : an i-adjective meaning ‘strong’ in Japanese.

This is a typical Japanese expression for “it’s windy today”. Unlike other nouns explained above, “kaze” cannot be used like an adjective. So, the particle and the i-adjective need to be put after it.

Snowy

Below is the new word used in the example.

• yuki – 雪 (ゆき) : a noun meaning ‘snow’. Like “ame”, it can be used like an adjective to mean ‘snowy’.

Basically this is more or less the same as the example shown in the “ame” part above. Only one difference is nouns used in the examples.

Similar words

In the previous paragraphs, I’ve explained the weather related expressions which Japanese people often use. In the next paragraphs, I will explain the two words which are very similar to “tenki”.

Tenko

The first one is “tenko”.

• tenko – 天候 (てんこう) : a noun meaning ‘weather’ or ‘climate’ in Japanese.

Let me check the new kanji character, “候”, as follows.

• ko – 候 (こう) : a kanji character widely used to mean ‘season’ or just ‘weather’.

So, the noun, “tenko”, literally means ‘the sky and weather’.

As you can see, both kanji expressions, “天気” and “天候”, look very similar. Yet, their meanings are not the same. The noun, “tenko”, can mean ‘climate’, namely, ‘long-term weather’. So, it can be used to mean the weather for a certain period of time. Normally, it would be several months. This period is very important to know the difference between “tenko” and the word explained below.

Kiko

The word, “kiko”, also looks similar to “tenki”, but their meanings are different.

• kiko – 気候 (きこう) : a noun meaning ‘climate’ in Japanese.

As you can see, it looks very similar to both “tenki” and “tenko”. Perhaps, they are a bit confusing to Japanese learners. Yet, “kiko” is definitely different from the others. It only means ‘climate’. In other words, it can only be used to mean the weather or its trend for a long period of time. And it is normally much longer than that for “tenko”. Therefore, when Japanese people express the climate change in Japanese, they normally use “kiko”.

And the rest

In this blog post, I’ve explained the noun, “tenki”, in detail based on its kanji expression. And also, I’ve explained weather related expressions, plus two words similar to “tenki”.

Basically, in daily conversation, Japanese people rarely use “tenko” or “kiko”. They don’t talk about the long-term weather that often. So, I think that Japanese learners should master “tenki” and the weather related expressions first. Hope my explanations above are understandable and helpful for them.