Слова о погоде на русском языке

What does “идёт дождь” mean in Russian?

In Russian, precipitation moves. The same verb that means “to walk” or “to go” — идти — is what rain and snow do: идёт дождь (it’s raining), идёт снег (it’s snowing), идёт град (it’s hailing). Where English uses “to fall” or an impersonal “it is,” Russian treats the weather as something that arrives on foot. Once you hear the pattern, you can’t unhear it.

The verb идёт here is the third-person singular present of идти (“to go on foot”), the same word in я иду домой (“I’m going home”). In the past tense the weather “walked” too: шёл дождь (“it was raining”), шёл снег (“it was snowing”). The clip runs through the full set — идёт сильный дождь (heavy rain), идёт снег, идёт град — making it easy to lock in the pattern across all three precipitation types at once. The same metaphor extends beyond weather: идёт фильм (“a film is playing”), идёт время (“time passes”) — so mastering it here pays off well past A1.