weather
HSK level
天气 is written with 8 strokes (天: 4, 气: 4). The animation replays automatically.
天气 (tiānqì) is the Chinese word for 'weather' — literally 'sky air.'
It refers to the day-to-day conditions: temperature, sunshine, rain, wind, snow. Common HSK 1 patterns combine it with simple adjectives: 天气好 (tiānqì hǎo, 'the weather is nice'), 天气热 (tiānqì rè, 'the weather is hot'), 天气冷 (tiānqì lěng, 'the weather is cold').
Two notes for English speakers: first, in Chinese 天气 normally appears with 很 or another modifier — saying just 天气好 sounds short, while 天气很好 is the natural full sentence; second, 天气 differs from 气候 (qìhòu, 'climate'), which describes long-term patterns over a region or season. If you're talking about tomorrow's rain, that's 天气; if you're talking about Beijing's dry winters, that's 气候.
Character by character
Memory hook: 'Sky' + 'air' — what the sky's air is doing today.
天气 appears in 6 Fluentide podcast episodes at natural native speed — each with the full Chinese script, pinyin, and line-by-line English translation.
今天的天气很好。
Jīntiān de tiānqì hěn hǎo.
Today's weather is very nice.
neutral
北京的天气怎么样？
Běijīng de tiānqì zěnmeyàng?
How's the weather in Beijing?
spoken
明天天气会很热。
Míngtiān tiānqì huì hěn rè.
Tomorrow's weather will be very hot.
neutral
我喜欢这样的天气。
Wǒ xǐhuan zhèyàng de tiānqì.
I like this kind of weather.
spoken
气候 means 'climate' — long-term, regional patterns (北京的气候很干 'Beijing's climate is dry'). 天气 means 'weather' — what it's doing today or this week. Don't swap them: 今天的气候 sounds wrong.
天 alone means 'sky / day / heaven.' Add 气 and you get 'weather.' 今天 = today; 今天的天气 = today's weather. Don't drop 气 when you mean weather.
客气 ('polite / formal') and 天气 ('weather') share the same 气 character. The first character determines the meaning; 气 just contributes a 'manner / atmosphere' nuance to both.
Acquire it by listening
You just saw 天气 in 6 episodes. Fluentide keeps feeding you news episodes at your level, so this word — and thousands like it — resurface in real sentences until they stick. Full pinyin and translation every time. Free to start.
