science

The Rain in Spain

The Rain in Spain is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand The Rain in Spain rather than just read about it. In short: "The Rain in Spain" is a song from the musical My Fair Lady, with music by Frederick Loewe and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, published in 1956. The song is a turning point in the plotline of the musical.

Key takeaways

The Rain in Spain belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect The Rain in Spain to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of The Rain in Spain from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

"The Rain in Spain" is a song from the musical My Fair Lady, with music by Frederick Loewe and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, published in 1956. The song is a turning point in the plotline of the musical. Professor Higgins and Colonel Pickering have been drilling Eliza Doolittle incessantly with speech exercises, trying to break her Cockney accent speech pattern. The key lyric in the song is "the rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain", which contains five words that a Cockney would pronounce with [æɪ] or [aɪ] – more like "eye" [aɪ] than the Received Pronunciation diphthong [eɪ]. With the three of them nearly exhausted, Eliza finally "gets it", and recites the sentence with all "proper" long-As. The trio breaks into song, repeating this key phrase as well as singing other exercises correctly, such as "In Hertford, Hereford, and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly ever happen", which Eliza had failed before by H-dropping.

Origin The phrase does not appear in Shaw's original play Pygmalion, on which My Fair Lady is based, but it is used in the 1938 film of the play. According to The Disciple and His Devil, the biography of Gabriel Pascal by his wife Valerie, it was he who introduced the famous phonetic exercises "The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain" and "In Hertford, Hereford, and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly ever happen" into the script of the film, both of which were later used in the song in My Fair Lady.

In other languages Versions of "The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain" in various languages include:

Danish: "En snegl på vejen er tegn på regn i Spanien" ("A snail on the road is a sign of rain in Spain") Dutch: "Het Spaanse graan heeft de orkaan doorstaan" ("The Spanish wheat has survived the hurricane") Finnish: "Käy fiestaan hienon miekkamiehen tie" ("The road of the fine swordsman goes to a fiesta"). Also: "En säiden tähden lähde fandangoon" ("Because of the weather, I won't do the fandango"). German: "Es grünt so grün, wenn Spaniens Blüten blüh'n" ("it turns green so green when Spain's blossoms bloom") Hebrew: "ברד ירד בדרום ספרד" ("Barad yarad bidrom sfarad haerev": Hail fell in southern Spain this evening.) Hungarian: "Lenn délen édes éjen édent remélsz" ("On a sweet night in the south, you hope for Eden".) Italian: "La rana in Spagna gracida in campagna" ("The frog in Spain croaks in the country side") and "Nei Pirenei c'è aria di nevai" ("In the Pyrenees there are blizzards brewing") Polish: "W Hiszpanii mży, gdy dżdżyste przyjdą dni" ("It drizzles in Spain when come the rainy days") Portuguese: "O rei de Roma ruma a Madrid" ("The king of Rome heads to Madrid") emphasizing the correct pronunciation of the voiced alveolar trill Russian: "Карл у Клары украл кораллы" ("Karl u Klary ukral korally" - "Carl has stolen corals from Clara") Spanish: "La lluvia en Sevilla es una pura maravilla" ("The rain in Seville is truly a marvel", playing with the sound of the "ll"). Swedish: "Den spanska räven rev en annan räv" ("The Spanish fox tore another fox")

Glee cover In 2012, a punk rock version of "The Rain in Spain" was performed in the comedy-musical TV series Glee, episode "Choke", by Mark Salling (as his character Puck) with his fictional glee club, New Directions.

References

External links "Barad yarad bidrom sfarad": How "The Rain in Spain" Fell in Eretz-Israel, by Dan Almagor "The Rain in Spain" from "My Fair Lady" on YouTube, 2001 London revival "The Rain in Spain (My Fair Lady)" from "Hey Mr Producer" on YouTube, 1998 live recording of "Hey, Mr. Producer!" "The Rain in Spain" from "An Evening with Alan Jay Lerner" on YouTube, 1987 live recording of "An Evening with Alan Jay Lerner" (feat. Plácido Domingo, Liz Robertson, Richard Caldicot)

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Rain in Spain

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Rain in Spain claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to The Rain in Spain before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about The Rain in Spain ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of The Rain in Spain

In research: The Rain in Spain appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses The Rain in Spain in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: The Rain in Spain is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1956 songs, Phonetics, Songs about Spain, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Rain in Spain outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study The Rain in Spain in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The Rain in Spain means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain The Rain in Spain out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Rain in Spain in simple terms?

Why does The Rain in Spain matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study The Rain in Spain?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on The Rain in Spain.