Lesson 3
Colors
Because colors are usually used as adjectives, and because Japanese colors have their own strange set of rules, I thought I'd make a separate lesson out of them.
Here are ten popular colors as they are used when not preceding a noun, which is most of the time:
- aka: red
- ao: blue
- kiiro: yellow
- midori: green
- murasaki: purple
- daidaiiro: orange
- chairo: brown
- shiro: white
- kuro: black
- nezumiiro: gray
Please keep in mind that iro means "color," and that four of the above are made by adding iro to a noun:
- kiiro: yellow (ki [sulfur] + iro [color])
- daidaiiro: orange (daidai [a kind of orange] + iro [color])
- chairo: brown (cha [tea] + iro [color])
- nezumiiro: gray (nezumi [mouse] + iro [color])
While it is possible to leave off the iro in some instances, this is how these colors are used most of the time. It is also possible to add iro to the others which usually don't use it: midori iro (green, greenish); shiro iro (white, whitish); etc.
Here are a few examples where the color comes after the noun it modifies:
- Rick no kuruma wa aka. (Rick's car is red.)
- Watashi no inu wa shiro to chairo. (My dog's white and brown.)
- Kondo jitensha o kattara ao ga ii. (The next time I buy a bicycle I want a blue one.)
Again, most of the time the color of something is mentioned in Japanese, it's after the subject or object in question, like in the above examples. When you want to put a color directly before the object, add i to aka, ao, shiro and kuro; add no — not na — to midori, murasaki, daidaiiro and nezumiiro; and you can add either i or no to kiiro and chairo:
- Kanojo no utsukushii kuroi kami o mite. (Look at her beautiful black hair.)
- Watashi wa shiroi kutsu o kaitai. (I want to buy some white shoes.)
- Junko wa kiiroi kasa o motte iru. (Junko's holding a yellow umbrella.)
- Kono akai jisho wa dare no? (Whose red dictionary is this?)
- Kono murasaki no fuusen wa mise de moratta. (I got this purple balloon at the store.)
- Bob wa ooki na nezumiiro no tsukue o katta. (Bob bought a big gray desk.)
Colors with i added become and behave the same as true adjectives; those with no behave like quasis.
There's a handy prefix that works especially well with three colors. It's ma, and it means "true." Note how the pronunciation changes with ma added:
- makka: bright red
- masshiro: pure white
- makkuro: jet black
These are usually handled as regular quasi-adjectives, and use na before the noun they modify:
- Ano makka na hana ga kirei desu ne. (That bright red flower is pretty, isn't it?)
And here's a useful suffix: -ppoi. It works like "-ish" in English, and comes in handy when you don't know what to call a color. All colors become true adjectives with it attached:
- Kanojo wa midorippoi boushi o kabutta. (She wore a greenish hat.)
- Sono kiiroppoi sushi wa mazui. (That yellowish sushi is nasty.)
By the way, you will find that the names for colors in Japanese, especially the primary ones, have a more abstract role than their English counterparts. Aka can mean anything from dark orange to copper or reddish purple; ao from green to bluish purple; and kiiro from light orange to pale yellow. In Japan, you stop when the light's aka, and go when it's ao.
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