Hello everyone!
At today’s lesson, I was asked by a student “does AKAI mean red too? “.
This is an excellent question and I am going to write about it.
When someone asks you “What is your favorite color?” (sukina iro wa nan desu ka?)
you would say “it is red”.
In that case, the word “red” is a noun. In Japanese you would say “aka desu.” (It is red)
When you want to say “I like the red shoes.”, the word “red” is an adjective.
In that case the word “red” is “AKAI”.
Then you would say in Japanese “watashi wa akai kutsu ga suki desu.”
Let me talk about other colors too. Have you studied the colors in Japanese?
(If you are using “GENKI an integrated course in elementary Japanese”, it is mentioned at Chapter 9. Page 229 in the third edition.)
| English | Japanese (noun) |
| red | aka あか |
| blue | ao あお |
| yellow | kiiro きいろ |
| brown | chairo ちゃいろ |
| black | kuro くろ |
| white | shiro しろ |
| green | midori みどり |
| purple | murasaki むらさき |
| gray | haiiro はいいろ |
| gold | kiniro きんいろ |
| silver | giniro ぎんいろ |
| orange | orenngi オレンジ |
| pink | pinku ピンク |
These colors can be divided into two groups.
double functions! (noun and adjective)
The one group has both noun function and adjective function after adding “i” at the end.
| noun | adjective | |
| red | aka | akai |
| blue | ao | aoi |
| yellow | kiiro | kiiroi |
| brown | chairo | chairoi |
| black | kuro | kuroi |
| white | shiro | shiroi |
If you want to say “My favorite color is blue”, the word “red” in the sentence is a noun.
So, the sentence will be “watashi no sukina iro wa ao desu.“
“watashi no sukuna iro wa aoi desu.” is grammatically wrong.
If you want to say “I like the blue bag”, the word “red” in the sentence is an adjective.
So, the sentence will be “watashi wa aoi kaban ga sukidesu.”
“watashi wa ao kaban ga sukidesu” is grammatically wrong.
Single function (just nouns…..)
The other group has only one function as noun.
| English | Japanese (noun) |
| green | midori |
| purple | murasaki |
| gray | haiiro |
| gold | kiniro |
| silver | giniro |
| orange | orenngi |
| pink | pinku |
“My favorite color is purple” will be “watashi no sukina iro wa muhrasaki desu”.
It is straight forward, isn’t it?
How about “purple bear”?
As we mentioned, the word “purple” in Japanese doesn’t have a function as adjectives.
It means you CAN’T create a word like “murasaki i” with the hope of making this into an adjective.
Do you guys remember what to do when you want to say two nouns right next to each other?
?
?
?
YES!
NO
What?
Sorry, sorry.
I didn’t mean to confuse you! hahaha
We will need a particle “no”の between two nouns.
So, “purple bear” will be “murasaki no kuma”.
Hope this helps.
Happy learning!
