Colors and Shapes in Japanese

Level A1

Colors and Shapes in Japanese

This lesson gives you the basic colors and shapes in Japanese and shows you how to describe things with them. As in English, the color comes before the noun, but Japanese colors come in two kinds: some are adjectives ending in い, like 赤い (akai, red), and the others are nouns that need の to join a noun, like 緑の車 (midori no kuruma, a green car). Like English adjectives, they have no plural form: 白い means white for one car or for ten. Every example is marked formal or informal: formal Japanese ends in です or ます and is what you say to a shop assistant or a stranger, while informal is the plain speech of friends and family, like 好きな色って何？ (suki na iro tte nani?).

Iro and eleven colors: 赤い (akai), 青い (aoi), 黄色い (kiiroi), 緑 (midori)…

Asking about a color: 何色ですか (nani-iro desu ka)

車は何色(いろ)ですか。

The color goes before the noun: 白い車 (shiroi kuruma)

白い車(くるま)

赤い or 緑の: two kinds of color words

Six colors are adjectives ending in い — 赤い (akai, red), 青い (aoi, blue), 白い (shiroi, white), 黒い (kuroi, black), 黄色い (kiiroi, yellow) and 茶色い (chairoi, brown) — and they go straight before a noun, just like in English: 白い車 (shiroi kuruma), a white car.

The others — 緑 (midori), ピンク (pinku), 紫 (murasaki), グレー (gurē), オレンジ色 (orenji-iro) — are nouns, so they need の between the color and the noun: ピンクのケーキ (pinku no kēki), a pink cake. Leaving out の, as an English speaker naturally would, is the most common mistake here.

The い colors also have a noun form without い, used when you name the color itself: これの黒はありますか (kore no kuro wa arimasu ka), do you have this in black? At the end of a sentence either form works with です: 新しい靴は茶色です (atarashii kutsu wa chairo desu) or 茶色いです, my new shoes are brown. To join two adjectives, the い becomes くて: ボールは赤くて丸いです (bōru wa akakute marui desu), the ball is red and round.

Every color as an adjective, as a noun and before a noun

Adjective (-い)NounBefore a noun
赤(あか)い赤赤い〜
青(あお)い青青い〜
白(しろ)い白白い〜
黒(くろ)い黒黒い〜
黄色(きいろ)い黄色黄色い〜
茶色(ちゃいろ)い茶色茶色い〜
—緑(みどり)緑の〜
—ピンクピンクの〜
—紫(むらさき)紫の〜
—グレーグレーの〜
—オレンジ色(いろ)オレンジ色の〜

Describing something: 車は白いです (kuruma wa shiroi desu)

車(くるま)は白いです。

Shapes: 円 (en), 正方形 (seihōkei), 三角形 (sankakukei), 長方形 (chōhōkei), ハート (hāto)

Asking about a shape: どんな形ですか (donna katachi desu ka)

これはどんな形(かたち)ですか。

In a clothes shop, politely: これの黒はありますか (kore no kuro wa arimasu ka)

Between friends, in casual speech: 好きな色って何？ (suki na iro tte nani?)

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