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  What it means

  Rain on the first or second day of July foretells forty days of rain. This folk weather proverb predicts a long wet spell from early July weather.

  Vocabulary

  • deszcz — rain
  • zapowiedź — announcement, foretelling
  • czterdziestodniowy — forty-day-long

  Grammar note

  'Zapowiedzią' is the instrumental of 'zapowiedź' and means is a foretelling of. 'Lipca pierwszego' uses the genitive for a date.

  Cultural context

  Forty days of rain recalls the biblical flood, giving the saying a religious note as well as a farming purpose.

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