Piove
Piove is the most common way to translate it’s raining into Italian.
Piove.
It’s raining.
Piove a catinelle. Vado a chiudere le persiane.
It’s raining cats and dogs. I’ll go close the shutters.
Piove comes from piovere, to rain, which belongs to the second -ere group. Its indicativo presente conjugation is as follows.
Present tense conjugation for piovere
| io | piovo |
| tu | piovi |
| lui, lei | piove |
| noi | pioviamo |
| voi | piovete |
| loro | piovono |
This verb is mostly used in the third person singular as an impersonal verb, it rains, because people don’t normally “rain”.
A giudicare dal cielo, pioverà presto.
Judging from the sky, it will rain soon.
Piovve per ore e ore.
It rained for hours and hours.
From piovere comes la pioggia, the rain.
La pioggia
The rain
Sta piovendo
If you want to emphasize that it’s raining at this very moment, you can use sta piovendo, which literally means “it stays raining”.
Sta piovendo.
It’s raining.
The gerund tense in Italian uses the verb stare, to stay, while English uses to be. Sta is basically the third person singular present conjugation of stare (that’s a mouthful!).
Less common ways to say it’s raining in Italian
Piove and sta piovendo are not the only translations for this phrase. Although less common, there are other ways to say it’s raining outside, such as è piovoso and c’è la pioggia.
Piovoso directly translates to rainy.
È piovoso.
It’s rainy.
C’è la pioggia literally means “there is rain”.
C’è la pioggia.
It’s rainy.
However, 9 times out of 10, you will hear either piove or sta piovendo.
Kinds of rain in Italian
Last but not least, I’d like to teach you some words and expressions that you can use to describe rain in Italian.
Piovere forte
To rain heavily
Fuori sta piovendo molto forte. È meglio che tu esca più tardi.
It is raining very heavily outside. You’d better go out later.
Piovere a dirotto
To rain dogs and cats
Piove a dirotto da due ore.
It has been pouring rain for two hours.
Piovere a catinelle
To rain dogs and cats
Literally: To rain in basins
If the rain is heavy enough, you can drop piovere and use a stronger verb like diluviare (to pour). If the rain is quite light, you can use a weaker verb like piovigginare, to drizzle.
Diluviare
To pour
Fuori diluvia e il gatto non è ancora tornato.
It’s pouring outside and the cat is not back yet.
Piovigginare
To drizzle
Sta solo piovigginando. Basterà un piccolo ombrello.
It’s just drizzling. A small umbrella will be enough.
More free Italian resources
You might want to keep learning Italian online with these free Italian resources:
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