Virtuous English AcademyNature & Weather — A2 English Vocabulary
This A2 vocabulary list gathers 30 elementary English words about nature & weather — the environment, seasons and the weather. Every word comes with a simple definition, its British-English pronunciation and a natural example sentence, so you learn each one in real context. When you are ready, open the flashcards to practise and remember them for good.
- #A2
- #Travel
- #Flashcards
- #Definitions
- #Examples
- #Pronunciation
Using nature & weather words in English
One fact governs half of this topic: weather is uncountable in English. There is no a weather and no weathers, which means the question you were probably taught in your first year — How is the weather? — is the only shape it can take. The landscape nouns are more straightforward, but they come with an unusually productive spelling pattern: add -y to the substance and you get the adjective, which turns fog, sand and rock into three more words at no cost.
What to watch out for
Weather is uncountable, and it is the subject
Say the weather is nice, never a weather or the weathers are. For conditions, English uses an empty it as the subject: It is raining, It was foggy this morning, It gets cold in November. There is nothing that it refers to — it is simply required, because an English sentence has to have a subject.
Add -y and you have the adjective
Fog gives foggy, sand gives sandy, rock gives rocky. The same move works right across weather and landscape: rain and rainy, wind and windy, sun and sunny, cloud and cloudy, hill and hilly. Learning the noun therefore gives you the adjective for free, which is unusually generous by English standards.
Seasons, and the with geography
Say in summer or in the summer — both are correct — but never in the summers. Geographical features take articles like any countable noun: a lake, a forest, an island. But the sea, the beach and the countryside normally take the even on first mention, because English treats them as places everyone already knows.
Words learners mix up
Three tables: the four weather words that are easiest to swap, the four kinds of green space that are not the same size, and the four words for what is under your feet.
Weather you can hear and feel
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| thunder | The sound after lightning. Uncountable, and the verb is impersonal: it thundered all night. | The thunder woke the children. |
| lightning | The flash itself. Uncountable, and spelled without an e — lightening is a different word entirely. | The tree was struck by lightning. |
| fog | Thick cloud at ground level that you cannot see through. Mist is the thinner, gentler version. | The fog lifted by ten o’clock. |
| breeze | A light, pleasant wind. Countable, and always positive — a strong wind is never a breeze. | There was a cool breeze off the sea. |
The first two arrive together and are constantly swapped: you see lightning and hear thunder, and neither can be counted, so three thunders is wrong. English also has one word for the whole event — a thunderstorm — which is countable and is what people actually say. Watch the spelling of lightning: adding the e gives you the verb for making something lighter.
Green spaces, from small to large
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| wood | A small area of trees, usually walkable in an hour. Often plural: a walk in the woods. | There is a bluebell wood behind the village. |
| forest | A large area of trees, big enough to get lost in. Countable, and it takes the when specific. | They cycled through the forest all afternoon. |
| field | An enclosed piece of farmland, normally with a hedge or a fence round it. | The field behind the house is full of sheep. |
| valley | The low ground between hills, usually with a river running along it. | The village sits at the bottom of the valley. |
Wood is doing two jobs on this page, because the same word is the uncountable material that trees are made of: a table made of wood. Only the countable one means a place. Note that a British field is nearly always agricultural — the grass you play football on is a pitch, and open uncultivated land is moorland or heath.
What is under your feet
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| earth | The planet when capitalised — the Earth — and ordinary ground or dark garden soil when it is not. | She covered the seeds with earth. |
| soil | Earth considered as something plants grow in. The word gardeners and farmers use: rich soil. | This soil is too dry for roses. |
| sand | The loose grains on a beach or in a desert. Uncountable, so a lot of sand and never sands. | The sand was too hot to walk on. |
| rock | Uncountable for the hard material of the ground, countable for one large piece of it. | The path is cut into solid rock. |
The rock and stone pair is worth adding here: a rock is large and usually still part of the ground, while a stone is small enough to pick up and throw. British English also uses stone for building material — a stone cottage — where rock would sound geological. All four of these words become -y adjectives, which is the pattern the notes above set out.
Collocations that sound natural
Landscape and weather are described in English through a small number of set phrases, and these are the ones that appear in forecasts, in guidebooks and in ordinary conversation about a day out.
climate
a mild climatea dry climateclimate changethe local climate
Climate is the long-term pattern and weather is what is happening today, so the climate is nice about this afternoon is wrong. It is uncountable when general and countable for a particular one.
wave
big wavesthe waves crasheda heat wavewave to someone
The same word covers the movement of the sea and the movement of your hand, and a heat wave borrows it for a long spell of hot weather.
season
the four seasonsthe rainy seasonout of seasonin season
Fruit and vegetables are in season when they naturally grow, and holiday resorts are out of season when the visitors have gone — the cheapest time to go.
beach
go to the beacha sandy beachon the beacha pebble beach
Most British beaches are pebble or shingle rather than sand, which is why the adjective is worth including. You are on the beach, never in it.
plant
water the plantsa house plantplant a treeplants grow
Noun and verb share one form, and the verb takes the thing planted as its object: we planted three apple trees. A plant is also a factory, which is a different word doing a different job.
shadow
cast a shadowin the shadow ofa long shadowfollow like a shadow
A shadow is the dark shape a thing makes; shade is the cool area out of the sun. You sit in the shade, not in the shadow.
Where each word belongs
Six words that hide something: two silent or shifting sounds, one that changes meaning with the stress, one that refuses a plural, and one whose second sense has taken over the internet.
- desertStress changes the wordThe dry place is DEZ-ert, stressed at the front. The verb meaning to abandon is di-ZERT, stressed at the end. Neither is dessert, the sweet course, which has two ss and is also stressed at the end.
- islandSilent <em>s</em>Say EYE-land — the s is not pronounced at all, and never has been in speech; it was added to the spelling by mistake centuries ago. The same silence appears in aisle.
- streamTwo livesA small narrow river, smaller than a brook is in some regions and always smaller than a river. The modern sense — watching or listening online as it arrives — has become far commoner than the water one.
- branchTwo sensesAn arm of a tree, and also a local office of a bank or a shop: our nearest branch. Both are countable, and the plural is branches. A very small tree branch is a twig.
- wildlifeUncountableAll the wild animals and plants of a place, taken together: the wildlife is protected here. There is no plural and no article a. For individual creatures the word is simply animals.
- hillSmaller than a mountainA raised piece of ground with no fixed height, but a British hill is what other countries would often call a mountain. The Lake District has hills; the Alps have mountains. Uphill and downhill are one word each.
Sentences to try
Four frames, two about weather and two about landscape. Describe the view from your own window with them.
- It was very foggy on the hills this morning.
- We walked through the forest down to the lake.
- The beach is sandy and the waves are big today.
- In winter the fields are completely white.
Questions about nature & weather vocabulary
Why can I not say "a weather"?
Because weather is uncountable in English — it names a general condition rather than separate objects, so it takes no a, no plural -s and a singular verb: The weather is terrible. To talk about one occasion, add a countable word: a spell of bad weather, a change in the weather. The question form learners most often get wrong is the plural one; it is always What is the weather like? or How is the weather?, never How are the weathers?
How do I make weather adjectives in English?
For most weather and landscape words, add -y to the noun: fog becomes foggy, rain becomes rainy, wind becomes windy, sun becomes sunny, cloud becomes cloudy, sand becomes sandy, rock becomes rocky, hill becomes hilly. A short vowel usually doubles the final consonant, which is why it is sunny and foggy with two letters. The main exception on this list is season, which has no -y form at all.
Do I say "in summer" or "in the summer"?
Both are correct and the difference is very small. In summer is slightly more general — the season as a whole, every year. In the summer often points at a particular one, especially when the context has already established which: We met in the summer. What is not correct is the plural, so avoid in the summers. For a specific year, add it directly: in the summer of 2024. Months and seasons both take in; days take on; times take at.