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 Talking about the weather
Do you recognise this situation: you are at a party standing next to someone you don’t know very well, and you feel a responsibility to start a conversation, but what are you going to talk about?
In such situations it is good to have icebreakers, ways of beginning a conversation that make other people relax.
To do so, we often want a topic which is universally accepted as neutral and relevant. One of the best is the weather.
We are all influenced by it, we all know about it, we all have an opinion about it, and not least, we cannot change it.
Furthermore, as a topic for conversation the weather is endless; we can talk about it for hours if we want to.
Here are a few tips on how to develop a ‘weather conversation’.
Starting a conversation
There are many ways of using the weather to start a conversation. Usually, we want to be open in this situation, and therefore we use open statements or questions which are not really meant to be answered (a kind of rhetorical question).
"Lovely weather today, isn’t it!"
"It’s a bit nippy today."
"What strange weather we're having!"
"All this rain. When will it end?!"
Continuing a conversation
Talking about the weather may also be useful for continuing a conversation having started with a comment about the weather. We can talk about future weather, and we can do that by using “will” or “going to”, or by using other expressions:
"I think it'll clear up later."
"It's going to snow by the looks of it."
"We're in for a heat wave next week."
"They're expecting rain in the west."
"I hear that snow is coming our way."
“There’s a storm on its way over to us.”
“We’re heading for a hot spell.”
Such expressions will often open for further conversation, also about other topics.
Linking the weather to other topics to develop your conversation
Using the weather as an icebreaker often allows us to move on to a related topic of conversation. For example, many British people are devoted to their gardens.
This also means an interest in the weather. Often you will find that talk about the weather is related to talk about gardening.
Even though the British like to complain about the weather, just like the Danes, they will often try to find something positive about the weather by relating it to gardening.
In case of too much rain, you might hear: “Never mind, it’s good for the garden.” Or in the case of very warm and dry weather, you might hear: “Oh, the tomatoes love it!”
Similarly, a Danish saying goes “Der findes ikke dårligt vejr, kun dårlige klæ’r” (or in English: “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only a bad choice of clothes”).
This is also a way of being positive about the weather despite the fact that it may not be exactly like you had hoped.
Just as the weather may be linked to gardening or clothing, it can be related to other topics, e.g. our health, history, our relations to other people etc.
Some examples of such linkage could be:
“How will older people cope with this heat?”
“When was it last like this?”
“What would we do if it was always like this?
“How do you cope with the heat?”
“Who would be happy about this kind of weather?”
“What do tourists think about this weather?”
“How does it affect business?”
“How do you reckon this rain will affect the game?”
Asking questions like these may develop into a longer chat about a related topic – we can always try our luck!
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