April showers bring May flowers

Given that spring has already started and the month of May is here, we think that it would be the perfect time to learn about a beautiful English saying “April showers bring May flowers”. The literal translation would be “las lluvias de abril traen flores de mayo”. However the Spanish versión is “A abril con sus chaparrones, sigue mayo con sus flores”

As you might already guess, this means that a rainy April will always be followed by a sunny month of May with all its brightly coloured flowers and perfumes.

Originally, there was a refrain that said “March winds and April showers, bring forth May flowers”. This saying also has a metaphoric significance telling us that generally, in life, after a difficult time, hardship or adversity there are always better times ahead. Therefore we should see the flowers of May as a kind of reward. Let’s take a look at the following example:

Mary: It doesn’t seem fair that you had to do all the work for the project with no help from your co-workers.

Annie: Well, considering that I got a promotion later on, I believe all that hard work paid off. You know what they say: April showers bring May flowers.

A similar English saying would be "Every cloud has a silver lining", but we’ll talk about that in a future article. For now, and because it is May we believe that it’s the perfect time to learn what some of the most popular flowers are called in English. Hopefully it will help you expand your vocabulary.

And if you can think of Spanish equivalents of the saying we’ve just explained we’d love to hear from you in the comments below.