Questions & Answers about Quando faz frio, eu uso um casaco grosso.
Why do you say faz frio instead of something closer to “it is cold”, like é frio or está frio?
In weather expressions, Brazilian Portuguese very often uses fazer (faz) as an impersonal verb:
- Faz frio. = It’s cold.
- Faz calor. = It’s hot.
- Faz sol. = It’s sunny.
Literally, fazer means to make / to do, but here it doesn’t really keep its literal meaning; it’s just part of a fixed pattern for talking about weather.
Using é frio or está frio is possible in some contexts, but:
- Faz frio. → neutral, very common for stating the weather.
- Está frio. → also common, especially when you mean the air / the temperature is cold right now.
- É frio. → usually describes something’s inherent characteristic:
- O inverno aqui é frio. = The winter here is cold. (not warm by nature)
So in your sentence, Quando faz frio... is a natural, standard way to say “When it’s cold…” in general.
What does faz literally mean in faz frio?
Faz is the 3rd person singular of fazer (to do / to make):
In faz frio, the verb has become impersonal: there is no real subject. We don’t think of it as “it makes cold” in everyday use; we just learn it as the idiomatic way to talk about the weather, similar to English “it’s raining / it’s cold” with a dummy it.