Kilo Lingo
Spanish grammar Part of Chapter 5

CEFR A1-B1

5 min read

Test yourself (31 questions)

Spanish Impersonal Verbs: llueve, hay, hace frío

By Michael McGettrick and Sergio Linares-HernandesUpdated 12 October 2026

Some Spanish verbs have no subject at all. English fills the gap with a dummy it or there; Spanish leaves it empty:

Quick check

Three quick questions on what you have just read. The full practice is further down.

Spot the mistake

0/3

Each sentence has one mistake. Tap it.

  • . - There's a dog.
  • . - It's raining.
  • . - It's cold.

The whole set on one screen

hayestarhacerWhat do the colours mean?
PatternSpanishEnglish
+ noun .There's a dog.
+ infinitive .You have to wait.
weather verb.It's raining.
+ weather noun .It's cold.
+ sky adjective nublado.It's cloudy.
+ time .I arrived an hour ago.
+ adj + inf. .It's important to sleep.

Every one of them is third person singular, and none has a word for it.

hay: there is, there are

means there is and there are. It never changes for number:

  • . - There's a car in the street.
  • . - There are three cars in the street.
  • . - There's nobody at home.
  • ¿ ? - Is there any milk?

Hay or está?

introduces something new: it says a thing exists somewhere. says where a thing you already know about is:

WhatSpanishEnglish
a new thing .There's a book on the table.
a known thing .The book is on the table.
a new thing .There are two banks here.
a known thing¿ ?Where's the bank?

The quick test is the word after it. goes with a, some, numbers and bare nouns; goes with the, my and names. So never .

hay que: one has to

plus an infinitive is an obligation for everyone, with nobody named:

  • . - You have to wait. (anyone would)
  • . - You pay at the end.

For one person's obligation, use :

SpanishEnglishWho
.One has to study.everyone
.I have to study.me

usually means there's no need to: - there's no need to shout. For a firm ban, Spanish says : - you can't smoke here.

hay in other tenses: había, hubo, habrá

has a form in every tense, and every one is singular, however many things follow:

TenseFormEnglish
presentthere is, there are
imperfectthere was, there were
preteritethere was (an event)
futurethere will be
conditionalthere would be
perfect there has been
  • . - There were a lot of people.
  • . - There was an accident.

sets the scene; reports an event, the preterite and imperfect split. is common in speech, but the standard keeps it singular.

Weather verbs: llueve, nieva, truena

A few verbs are the weather itself. Used for the weather, they appear only in the third person singular, with no subject:

Four panels: a grinning sun over an ice cream for sunny and hot; a grey cloud with rain falling on a red umbrella for rainy; a white cloud, snowflakes and a snowman for snowy and cold; a puffing cloud blowing wind and leaves at a bending tree for windy.
  1. .
  2. .
  3. Nieva.
  4. .

Rain and snow are verbs of their own; sun and wind take hace.

VerbEnglishPresentPast
to rain
nevarto snownievanevó
tronarto thundertruenatronó
granizarto hailgranizagranizó
helarto freezehielaheló
to get lightamanece
  • Galicia. - It rains a lot in Galicia.
  • nevando. - It's snowing.
  • . - It's going to rain.

, tronar, nevar and helar are ordinary stem-changing verbs: o becomes ue, e becomes ie.

llover: o becomes ue
nevar: e becomes ie

hace, está and hay for weather

Most weather is plus a noun, literally it makes cold:

Verb + wordSpanishEnglish
+ noun .It's cold.
+ noun .It's hot.
+ noun .The weather's good.
+ adjective nublado.It's cloudy.
+ noun .It's foggy.

and are nouns here, so very is , not :

  • . - It's very cold.
  • . - It's very hot.

Sun and wind go either way: and are everyday Spanish too, beside and .

A person who feels cold takes , not : - I'm cold. That family is on tener expressions.

hace + time: ago and for

with a length of time is also subjectless:

  • . - I arrived five minutes ago.
  • . - I' lived here for two years.

With a past verb it means ago; with and a present verb, for (and still going on). The hace and desde page has every pattern.

es + adjective + infinitive

plus an adjective plus an infinitive gives a general judgement. The real subject is the infinitive:

AdjectiveSpanishEnglish
important .It's important to sleep well.
necessary .It's necessary to arrive early.
easy Madrid.It's easy to get lost in Madrid.
better .It's better to wait.

The same tells the time of day: - it's late; - it's night-time. Name a person and the infinitive becomes plus the subjunctive: - it's important that you sleep (subjunctive after impersonal expressions).

Mistakes English speakers make

WrongRightWhy
..no word for it
. . stays singular
. .a known thing takes
. .weather nouns take
. . is a noun
. .a person feeling cold:

What to do next

  1. Do the weather story and the sort drill below.
  2. Then tener expressions for and .
  3. For and , see passive se and impersonal se.

Practise: test yourself

Complete the story

0/6

Choose hay, hace or está for each gap.

A weather report

Hoy mucho frío en Madrid. En el norte niebla y el cielo nublado. Mañana sol, pero viento. que llevar abrigo.

Gap 1 of 6

Sort into groups

0/6

Which verb goes in front of each weather word?

Tap a word, then the group it belongs in.

Spot the mistake

0/4

Each sentence has one mistake. Tap it.

Pick the right one

0/6

Choose hay, está or hace.

  1. tres coches en la calle.

  2. Mi coche en la calle.

  3. Hoy buen tiempo.

  4. No agua en casa.

  5. Llegué dos horas.

  6. ¿Dónde el baño?

Translation drill

0/4

Translate into English.

  1. Hay que esperar.

  2. Llueve mucho.

  3. Llegué hace una hora.

  4. Es importante dormir bien.

Pick the picture

0/5

Which picture shows the weather?

  1. Hoy llueve mucho.

  2. Hace calor.

  3. Hoy nieva.

  4. Hace frío.

  5. Hace viento.

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Practice worksheets and infographics

Practice worksheets with answer keys built in, plus infographic and listicle formats. Open any one to view, print or save.

Infographics

  1. Key points infographic
  2. The whole set on one screen
  3. Hay or está?
  4. hay que: one has to
  5. hay in other tenses: había, hubo, habrá
  6. Weather verbs: llueve, nieva, truena
  7. hace, está and hay for weather
  8. es + adjective + infinitive
  9. Mistakes English speakers make

Other formats

  1. Listicle

More grammar on this course

Frequently asked questions

What does in Spanish?
means there is or there are, and it never changes for number: (there is a car), (there are three cars). It comes from the verb . The past is (there was, there were), and the future (there will be), both just as invariable.
Is it or ?
. and its other tenses have no subject, so they stay singular: , , . is very common in speech in Latin America and parts of Spain, but the treats it as non-standard, and exams mark it wrong.
What is the difference between and ?
says that something exists somewhere and introduces it: (there's a book on the table). says where a thing you already know about is: (the book is on the table). So goes with , , numbers and bare nouns, and with , and names.
How do you say it is raining in Spanish?
, or if you mean right now. has no subject, so there is no word for it: (it rains, it's raining), (it rained), a (it's going to rain). Snow works the same way: nieva, nevando.
Why is it and not or ?
Because Spanish treats weather as something the day makes: is literally it makes cold. and are nouns here, which is also why you say , never . a thing ( , the soup is cold), and what something is like in general ( ).