The Japanese basic colors are a system based on color warmth/coolness and lightness/darkness. Warm colors include red, yellow and brown. Cool colors include white, black and blue. The light colors are the colors red, yellow, white and blue while the dark colors are the colors red, brown, black and blue.

In Japanese, most color names have the suffix "iro" or color.

All colors are treated as nouns, but there is a way of saying or writing it to make the color an adjective. The suffix "i" is added to make the color name an adjective.


Here are Japanese terms for the different colors. The ones in red are nouns and the ones in blue are the adjective forms.

Color - I ro 色

Rainbow - Ni ji


Black - Ku ro 黒 | Ku ro i

White - Shi ro 白 | Shi ro i

Brown - Cha i ro 茶色 | Cha i ro i

Gray - Ha i i ro 灰色 The word "hai" means ash. The term Gure is also used

Red - A ka 赤 | A ka i

Orange - da i da i i ro 橙色 The terms Mikan which stands for Japanese oranges or orenji which stands for Western oranges are also used.

Yellow - Ki i ro 黄色 or just Ki 黄 | Ki i ro i

Green - Mi do ri 緑

Blue - A o 青 | A o i

Light Blue - Mi zu i ro 水色 The word "mizu" means water.

Indigo - Ai

Violet - Mu ra sa ki 紫

Pink - Mo mo i ro 桃色 or pinku

Pale pink - Sa ku ra i ro

Crimson - A ka ne i ro "Akane" is derived from the name of a plant whose root is used to dye cloth deep red.

Vermilion - Syu i ro

Yellow orange - Ya ma bu ki i ro "Yamabuki" is a kind of yellow flower.

Yellow Green - Ki mi do ri 黄緑

Olive green - U gu i su i ro "Uguisu" is a kind of bird.

Deep green - Hu ka mi do ri "Hukai" means deep.

Deep blue - A i i ro

Dark purplish blue - Ko n' i ro

Lavender - Hu zi i ro

Yellow ochre - ô do i ro

Dark brown - ko ge tya


There is a detailed color chart at wiki


What is your favorite color?
Sukina iro wa nan desu ka?
好きな色は何ですか。


Notes:

• If you have more Japanese terms for colors, kindly post it here.
• I am not an expert on the Japanese languages, if by any chance I have incurred a mistake, kindly correct my errors. Thank you.
• If you have further questions, post your queries, comments, appreciations here…

Have fun learning Japanese languages!!!

Here is a video for you guys to learn the pronunciation.

Awesomeee o:

color red is included in both 'light' and 'dark' colors??? wow.....thats interesting!!

Thanks ...Indigo - Ai [ai also means love right??? ]

This post was last modified: 01-18-2008 04:40 AM by photons.

thnx.

i think i'm leraning easily..~

arigato!!!

wow! now I know that my favorite color is murasaki in japanese.hehe c",)

Interesting thanks.

domo arigato!!!