How do I say 'it's so hot'?

Weather complaints are the universal Chinese small talk, and summer provides ample material. The basic vocabulary:

• 热 — hot (temperature). 好热 = so hot. This is the all-purpose word.
• 闷热 — the humid, sticky, oppressive heat characteristic of southern Chinese summers. This word is essential for describing the weather from Shanghai southward. It is not just “hot” — it is “the air won’t move and you are suffocating.”
• 热死了 — the dramatic complaint. Follows the same 死了 intensifier pattern as 累死了 and 饿死了. “I’m dying of heat.”

Chinese small talk often opens with a weather observation: 今天真热啊！(It’s really hot today!) is as standard as “Nice weather we’re having” but with the opposite valence — Chinese weather small talk is often about shared suffering, not shared appreciation.

The seasonal rhythm: summer complaints about heat (热), winter complaints about cold (冷), and year-round observations about rain (下雨). These are the conversational lubricant between strangers and colleagues.