The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain?

Question

Someone said that to me. I don't understand what that means? Can you explain what the heck that is? They said it's a song or something, but I don't even know what it means. Thanks!

Answer 1

This comes up about once a week, but this is the first time I have ever seen someone who doesn´t even recognize it!  Go to the library and see if you can get a copy of My Fair Lady.  It´s a song from the musical!  It doesn´t actually mean anything...the Rain in Spain actually falls more in the northern mountains...depending on the season, though.  It´s a diction exercise that Henry Higgins gives to Eliza Doolittle so that she can learn how to say the long A sound properly.  See, she´s cockney and the rest you´ll get from the soundtrack/orig. cast recording.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

I think it is an elocution exercise, like choir and speech teachers like to give students to make them pronounce certain vowels and consonants more clearly.  For example:  "Take a peep at these trees.  The leaves seem a very deep green."   The students have to say these sentences over and over again, emphasizing the particular sound, until they have it right.  In this case it is the long e sound that is being emphasized. In the musical 'My Fair Lady', Henry Higgins used "The rain in Spain..." in order to teach Eliza Dolittle to talk like an aristocrat instead of a street vendor with a Cockney accent.  He put the saying to music.

I don't think that the plain in Spain gets most of the rain in the country if it is located in the interior.  According to the chart I have, Madrid gets between 19 and 29 days of no rain per month (29 in August).  It makes sense that other regions would get more rain, espcially the ones near the coast.