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Let’s talk about Japanese basic colors vocabularies~
Now, before we begin. There are 2 type of colors. Adjective words and Noun.
We’ll be talking about the noun first. There are a lot of colors, but we’ll only cover the basics here.
白 (shiro) : white
黒 (kuro) : black
赤 (aka) : red
青 (ao) : blue (sometimes also used for green)
緑 (midori) : green
紫 (murasaki) : purple
These colors below require to have the 色 (iro • color) suffix
黄色 (ki iro) : yellow
茶色 (cha iro) : light brown (Lit: tea color)
灰色 (hai iro) : grey (Lit: ash color)
桃色 (momo iro) : pink (Lit: peach color)
橙色 (daidai iro) : orange (Lit: citrus color)
Adopted from foreign word:
ホワイト (howaito) : white
ブラック (burakku) : black
ピンク (pinku) : pink
オレンジ (orenji) : orange
Now we’ll be talking about adjective colors. Note that while there are many more noun colors not mentioned above, this list below is the complete list of adjective colors.
白い (shiroi) : white
黒い (kuroi) : black
赤い (akai) : red
青い (aoi) : blue (sometimes also used for green)
黄色い (kiiroi) : yellow
茶色い (chairoi) : light brown
What is the difference???
Yes, they are the same word, but with additional い at the back.
There are 2 type of adjectives in Japanese. The い adjective and な adjective. These colors are a part of い adjective.
As an adjective, you will see the different when they are combined with another nouns.
白い車 (shiroi kuruma) : white car
白の車 (shiro no kuruma) : white car
The meaning is the same, but the NOUN version of white requires particle の to modify another noun. Meanwhile the い adjective 白い doesn’t need that.
F.A.Q: Can I use の for い adjective?
People will understand and some people might also use it that way, but it will not be grammatically correct~
Happy learning ! ｡ﾟ✶ฺ.ヽ(*´∀`*)ﾉ.✶ฺﾟ｡