Parlo del tempo: ieri, oggi e domani
A1 Italian listening practice · Italian · Curated for beginners
What does “tempo” mean in Italian?
In Italian, one short word — tempo — covers both “time” and “weather.” To ask what the weather’s like, you say “Che tempo fa?” (literally “what weather does it make?”). Context tells you which meaning is in play: paired with è or words like brutto (bad) or bello (nice), tempo is the weather. Talk about hours, minutes, or eras, and the same word means time.
Clara opens with “Ciao, io sono Clara e oggi parlo del tempo, tempo.” and then spends the clip describing the sky, so here tempo is the weather: “Il tempo oggi è brutto” (the weather today is bad), “Ieri il tempo era nuvoloso” (yesterday it was cloudy), “Domani il tempo sarà soleggiato” (tomorrow it’ll be sunny). The same word also means time — “non ho tempo” (I have no time), “molto tempo fa” (a long time ago). It comes from Latin tempus (time), and the weather sense grew up across Romance languages: French temps and Spanish tiempo do the same double duty. A quick test: if a verb like fa or è is doing the work and someone’s talking about rain or sun, tempo is the weather.