rain heavily与rain lightly的用法

问题描述

我知道，要表示雨下得大，可用 rain heavily。如：
It began to rain heavily. 开始下大雨了。

It rained heavily last night. 昨晚雨下得很大。
It was raining heavily. 雨下得很大。
It’s not raining heavily any more but it’s still spitting a bit. 大雨虽停了，但还飘着小雨。
It rained heavily and every depression in the road was filled with muddy water. 雨下得很大，路上每个坑洼处都积满了泥浆水。
但如果要表示雨下得小，可以用 rain lightly 吗？因为我看到一篇日记是这样开头的：
That day it was raining lightly. I got up very late. After I had my breakfast, I went out to buy some fruit…
我觉得这里的 raining light 用得有点奇怪，请老师指点一下，非常感谢！

老师答疑

波老师：

可以说 rain lightly 的。比如2015年全国高考英语课标I卷语法填空题的第一句就有一处 rain lightly用法：
It was raining lightly when I arrived in Yangshuo just before dawn. But I didn’t care. A few hours earlier, I’d been at home in Hong Kong, with its choking smog. Here, the air was clean and fresh, even with the rain. 

刘老师：

rain lightly这个用法如何，我们可以查阅英美人是否常用。

查阅语料库CORPUS OF CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN ENGLISH，结果是：rain lightly 5例；rained lightly 1例；raining lightly 11例。

动词+lightly：共17例。如：

It had started to rain lightly.

Outside it began to rain lightly.

It was raining lightly, but the rain did not seem to bother the Mentor.

It was raining lightly, but she'd taken her umbrella down.

It is raining lightly outside.

名词a light rain：共137例。如：

A light rain is falling.

A light rain had begun to tumble down.

The sky is black; there's a light rain falling.

By dawn a light rain fell on campus.

and a light rain came quietly down.

I had an early breakfast and, in spite of a light rain, decided to take a walk.

There was a light rain, leaves shifting overhead

It's a light rain right now, but there's a pretty strong headwind.

A light rain falls on a SMALL FARMHOUSE.

通过查阅语料库，看英美人的实际使用情况，得出如下结论：

rain lightly可以用，但数量较少，远不如a light rain用的多。

此外，同样语料库查阅，rain heavily 4例；rained heavily 8例；raining heavily 17例。动词+heavily：共29例。名词a heavy rain：共68例。