Learn about expression of "color" in Japanese
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Yoshi: おはよう、ユーリカ。よしです。(Ohayō, Yūrika. Yoshi desu.) |
| Chigusa: おはよう、ユーリカ。ちぐさです。(Ohayō, Yūrika. Chigusa desu.) |
| Peter: Peter here. In today’s lesson, we have a bit of an ambitious plan. Yoshi-san, what are we going to try and cover today? |
| Yoshi: 色 (iro) |
| Peter: Colors and Yoshi-san, how many are we going to try and cover today? |
| Yoshi: A lot. |
| Peter: A lot. A big chunk of the crayon box is what we are going to try and take care of today. What we are going to do today is cover the major colors. Now we put a lot into this lesson and it may seem overwhelming but we think it will benefit you better to have all the colors in one place, at least one time. That way you can listen to this lesson over and over and hear the colors. Okay, with that said, this is a bit of a throwback. We are going to have a conversation that takes place in – Chigusa-san, how old would you say these kids are? |
| Chigusa: Five or six. |
| Peter: Five or six. |
| Chigusa: Or even younger. |
| Peter: And as these kids are in the same class, they are going to be speaking informal Japanese to each other. Now the teacher starts off polite, but the kids are speaking with each other. So it’s going to be very informal. Okay informal, lots of vocab, here we go. |
| DIALOGUE |
| 先生 (sensei) : 皆さん、おかたづけの時間ですよ。(Mina-san, o-katazuke no jikan desu yo.) |
| よし (Yoshi) : おかたづけ嫌い！(O-katazuke kirai!) |
| ちぐさ (Chigusa) : 色鉛筆の箱はどこ？(Iroenpitsu no hako wa doko?) |
| よし (Yoshi) : ここだよ。色鉛筆は？(Koko da yo. Iroenpitsu wa?) |
| ちぐさ (Chigusa) : ここにあるよ。「白」「灰色」「黒」「茶色」「赤」「桃色」「オ |
| レンジ」があるよ。(Koko ni aru yo. "Shiro" "haiiro" "kuro" "chairo" "aka" "momoiro" "orenji" ga aru yo.) |
| よし (Yoshi) : ここにもあるよ。「黄色」「黄緑」「緑」「水色」「青」「紫」がある。(Koko ni mo aru yo. "Kiiro" "kimidori" “midori" "mizuiro" "ao" "murasaki" ga aru.) |
| ちぐさ (Chigusa) : これで全部。(Kore de zenbu.) |
| Peter: One more time.Slowly please. |
| Chigusa: もう一度お願いします。ゆっくりお願いします。(Mō ichi-do onegai shimasu. Yukkuri onegai shimasu.) |
| 先生 (sensei) : 皆さん、おかたづけの時間ですよ。(Mina-san, o-katazuke no jikan desu yo.) |
| よし (Yoshi) : おかたづけ嫌い！(O-katazuke kirai!) |
| ちぐさ (Chigusa) : 色鉛筆の箱はどこ？(Iroenpitsu no hako wa doko?) |
| よし (Yoshi) : ここだよ。色鉛筆は？(Koko da yo. Iroenpitsu wa?) |
| ちぐさ (Chigusa) : ここにあるよ。「白」「灰色」「黒」「茶色」「赤」「桃色」「オレンジ」があるよ。(Koko ni aru yo. "Shiro" "haiiro" "kuro" "chairo" "aka" "momoiro" "orenji" ga aru yo.) |
| よし (Yoshi) : ここにもあるよ。「黄色」「黄緑」「緑」「水色」「青」「紫」がある。(Koko ni mo aru yo. "Kiiro" "kimidori" “midori" "mizuiro" "ao" "murasaki" ga aru.) |
| ちぐさ (Chigusa) : これで全部。(Kore de zenbu.) |
| Chigusa: 今度は、ピーターの英語が入ります。(Kondo wa, Pītā no Eigo ga hairimasu.) |
| 先生 (sensei) : 皆さん、おかたづけの時間ですよ。(Mina-san, o-katazuke no jikan desu yo.) |
| TEACHER: Okay everyone, it's time to clean up! |
| よし (Yoshi) : おかたづけ嫌い！(O-katazuke kirai!) |
| YOSHI: I hate cleaning! |
| ちぐさ (Chigusa) : 色鉛筆の箱はどこ？(Iroenpitsu no hako wa doko?) |
| CHIGUSA: Where's the colored pencil box? |
| よし (Yoshi) : ここだよ。(Koko da yo.) |
| YOSHI: Here it is! |
| よし (Yoshi) : 色鉛筆は？(Iroenpitsu wa?) |
| YOSHI: And the colored pencils? |
| ちぐさ (Chigusa) : ここにあるよ。(Koko ni aru yo.) |
| CHIGUSA: Here they are. |
| ちぐさ (Chigusa) : 「白」("Shiro") |
| CHIGUSA: There's white, |
| ちぐさ (Chigusa) : 「灰色」("haiiro") |
| CHIGUSA: gray, |
| ちぐさ (Chigusa) : 「黒」("kuro") |
| CHIGUSA: black, |
| ちぐさ (Chigusa) : 「茶色」("chairo") |
| CHIGUSA: brown, |
| ちぐさ (Chigusa) : 「赤」("aka") |
| CHIGUSA: red, |
| ちぐさ (Chigusa) : 「桃色」("momoiro") |
| CHIGUSA: peach, |
| ちぐさ (Chigusa) : 「オレンジ」があるよ。("orenji" ga aru yo.) |
| CHIGUSA: and orange. |
| よし (Yoshi) : ここにもあるよ。(Koko ni mo aru yo.) |
| YOSHI: They're also here. |
| よし (Yoshi) : 「黄色」("Kiiro") |
| YOSHI: There's yellow, |
| よし (Yoshi) : 「黄緑」("kimidori") |
| YOSHI: yellow-green, |
| よし (Yoshi) : 「緑」(“midori") |
| YOSHI: green, |
| よし (Yoshi) : 「水色」("mizuiro") |
| YOSHI: light blue, |
| よし (Yoshi) : 「青」("ao") |
| YOSHI: blue, |
| よし (Yoshi) : 「紫」がある。("murasaki" ga aru.) |
| YOSHI: and purple. |
| ちぐさ (Chigusa) : これで全部。(Kore de zenbu.) |
| CHIGUSA: That's all of them. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Peter: Okay Chigusa-san, what did you think of today’s conversation? |
| Chigusa: It’s a very cute conversation. |
| Peter: 懐かしい？(Natsukashii?) |
| Chigusa: 懐かしいです。(Natsukashii desu.) |
| Peter: And Yoshi-san, how about you? |
| Yoshi: This sounds very familiar. My sister just started teaching my nieces to clean up. |
| Peter: So for you, the point of the conversation was the cleaning. |
| Yoshi: Yeah, yeah. |
| Peter: Not the colors? |
| Chigusa: Not the colors. |
| Peter: That’s good. Okay, what was that word we had Yoshi-san, 懐かしい (natsukashii)? Can you break that down? |
| Yoshi: 懐かしい (natsukashii) |
| (slow) なつかしい (natsukashii) (natural speed) 懐かしい (natsukashii) |
| Peter: Nostalgic. Okay, now let’s get into the vocab there. Lots in there today. Lots of colors and stuff. Joining us for vocab is Sakura-san. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Sakura: よろしくお願いします。(Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.) |
| Yoshi: よろしくお願いします。(Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.) |
| Peter: よろしくお願いします。(Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.) Okay, first word. |
| Sakura: おかたづけ (o-katazuke) |
| Peter: Tidy up. |
| Sakura: (slow) おかたづけ (o-katazuke) (natural speed) おかたづけ (o-katazuke) |
| Peter: And what verb does this come from? |
| Sakura: かたづける (katazukeru) |
| Peter: Now we drop the る (ru), the final syllable and we add a prefix |
| Sakura: お (o) |
| Peter: To get this word. To tidy up. |
| Sakura: It’s for children, おかたづけ (o-katazuke). |
| Peter: Ah really? |
| Sakura: Yes. For adults it’s かたづけ (katazuke). We don’t put お (o). |
| Peter: Why is that? |
| Sakura: We often put お (o) in front of children’s words. I don’t know why but we do. |
| Peter: We are going to have to look into that. Hmm! |
| Sakura: Umm… |
| Peter: Can you give us another example? |
| Sakura: Like |
| Yoshi: お昼寝 (o-hirune) |
| Peter: Nap. What a beautiful word! Can you just give it to us one more time and break it down? |
| Yoshi: (slow) おひるね (o-hirune) (natural speed) お昼寝 (o-hirune) |
| Peter: Now the word in there for nap is |
| Yoshi: 昼寝 (hirune) |
| Peter: But as we are talking about with the kids' words. |
| Yoshi: お (o) |
| Peter: Is attached to the front of 昼寝 (hirune). Next we have |
| Yoshi: 色鉛筆 (iroenpitsu) |
| Peter: Colored pencils. |
| Yoshi: (slow) いろえんぴつ (iroenpitsu) (natural speed) 色鉛筆 (iroenpitsu) |
| Peter: Now let’s take a closer look at this word. Yoshi-san, what’s the word for color? |
| Yoshi: 色 (iro) |
| Peter: And just break that down. |
| Yoshi: (slow) いろ (iro) (natural speed) 色 (iro) |
| Peter: Now what’s the word for pencil? |
| Yoshi: 鉛筆 (enpitsu) |
| (slow) えんぴつ (enpitsu) (natural speed) 鉛筆 (enpitsu) |
| Peter: This is straightforward, just a color pencil, that’s it. Nothing to it, straightforward, direct translation, color pencil okay. Now that we have the color pencils, let’s talk about the colors. Okay, what we are going to do here is we are going to go through the colors. We are going to give the Japanese ones, then we are going to give the English, then the breakdown, then the Japanese one more time. So there is no commentary in there, just straight run through the colors. Here we go. |
| Yoshi: 白 (shiro) |
| Peter: White. |
| Yoshi: (slow) しろ (shiro) (natural speed) 白 (shiro) |
| Sakura: 灰色 (haiiro) |
| Peter: Gray. |
| Sakura: (slow) はいいろ (haiiro) (natural speed) 灰色 (haiiro) |
| Yoshi: 黒 (kuro) |
| Peter: Black. |
| Yoshi: (slow) くろ (kuro) (natural speed) 黒 (kuro) |
| Sakura: 茶色 (chairo) |
| Peter: Brown. |
| Sakura: (slow) ちゃいろ (chairo) (natural speed) 茶色 (chairo) |
| Yoshi: 赤 (aka) |
| Peter: Red. |
| Yoshi: (slow) あか (aka) (natural speed) 赤 (aka) |
| Sakura: 桃色 (momoiro) |
| Peter: Peach. |
| Sakura: (slow) ももいろ (momoiro) (natural speed) 桃色 (momoiro) |
| Yoshi: オレンジ (orenji) |
| Peter: Orange. |
| Yoshi: (slow) おれんじ (orenji) (natural speed) オレンジ (orenji) |
| Sakura: 黄色 (kiiro) |
| Peter: Yellow. |
| Sakura: (slow) きいろ (kiiro) (natural speed) 黄色 (kiiro) |
| Yoshi: 黄緑 (kimidori) |
| Peter: Yellow green. |
| Yoshi: (slow) きみどり (kimidori) (natural speed) 黄緑 (kimidori) |
| Sakura: 緑 (midori) |
| Peter: Green. |
| Sakura: (slow) みどり (midori) (natural speed) 緑 (midori) |
| Yoshi: 水色 (mizuiro) |
| Peter: Light blue. |
| Yoshi: (slow) みずいろ (mizuiro) (natural speed) 水色 (mizuiro) |
| Sakura: 青 (ao) |
| Peter: Blue. |
| Sakura: (slow) あお (ao) (natural speed) 青 (ao) |
| Yoshi: 紫 (murasaki) |
| Peter: Purple. |
| Yoshi: (slow) むらさき (murasaki) (natural speed) 紫 (murasaki) |
| Peter: Okay. Now a few things we want to point out about these colors. Sakura-san, what’s the word for color, one more time? |
| Sakura: 色 (iro) |
| Peter: Now listen to the following colors. Gray. |
| Sakura: 灰色 (haiiro) |
| Peter: Yellow. |
| Sakura: 黄色 (kiiro) |
| Peter: Light blue. |
| Sakura: 水色 (mizuiro) |
| Peter: Do you hear the color in there? Some words for color actually include the word color as in the words we just gave you. A couple others are standalone words. The word for green |
| Sakura: 緑 (midori) |
| Peter: And the word for purple |
| Sakura: 紫 (murasaki) |
| Peter: Now the reason we are pointing this out is some of the colors can be used not only in this way but also as i-adjectives. Now there will be a write up about this inside the PDF. So you want to stop by japanesepod101.com and pick up that PDF. There will be a detailed chart about the different uses. Now the ones that end in 色 (iro), the Japanese word for color plus the standalone words, they cannot take the い (i) of the i-adjective but other words for color can and you may have come across some already. Last we have |
| Sakura: 全部 (zenbu) |
| Peter: All. |
| Sakura: (slow) ぜんぶ (zenbu) (natural speed) 全部 (zenbu) |
Outro |
|---|
| Peter: So our goal today was to introduce you to lots of colors. Now what we introduced today is the noun form. And here is the key and also a little bit of the trick which we will talk about inside the PDF. Some of these words also have an adjective form. Today we gave you the noun form. All correct, okay, that’s going to do it for today. |
| Sakura: またね。(Mata ne.) |
| Yoshi: またね。(Mata ne.) |
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Comments
HideMina-san, Today's location is ユリーカ・Yurīka - hello to all of our listeners in Eureka, California :grin: Yoroshiku onegai shimasu!
Drew san,
Konnichiwa.
That is ‘まっ.’:smile:
Team JapanesePod101.com
Yuki 由紀
どうも。
For the pure white, black, red, and blue is it まつ or
まっ before the noun?
よろしくお願いします。
エリックさん、
こんにちは。
You can use them interchangeably when they are put as predicates.
When i-adjective is put before nouns, it’s always i-adjective.
It means you can’t say 白バッグ.
:smile:
Yuki 由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com
由紀さん、
コメントしてくれてありがとうございました。 :thumbsup:
So then, colors that can be い adjectives can be used interchangeably as nouns and い adjectives?
エリックさん、
こんにちは。
それは紫の椅子です。
That’s a purple chair.
この灰色の箱は重いです。
This brown box is heavy.
Those sentences above are correct.
As you said they are nouns so they must followed by nouns when they modify nouns.
1. あの猫は白です。
2. あの猫は白いです。
Both sentences are grammatically correct.
白 in number 1 is a noun and 白い in number 2 is an i-adjective.
When you drop いfrom i-adjectives (colours), they become nouns.
黒い → 黒
青い → 青
赤い → 赤 and so on.
:smile:
Yuki 由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com
Colors that are nouns must be followed by の to be used to describe an object, correct?
それは紫の椅子です。
That's a purple chair.
この灰色の箱は重いです。
This brown box is heavy.
Are those two example sentences correct?
For colors that can be either a noun or an い adjective, if the color comes after the object, does it still need the い?
あの猫は白です。
Versus
あの猫は白いです。
Which of those would be correct to mean "that cat is white"?
ありがとうございます！ :thumbsup:
Louis san,
今日は。どういたしまして。
Yuki 由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com
Thank you !
Louis san,
今日は。
10年生or高校1年生です。
Yuki 由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com
Hi, good evening.
I am just wondering about how to say
"i am in grade 10" in Japanese ?
Because besides 学生， i use the word "grade" quite often....
Hi Tim,
You can find the Lite PDF on the original lesson page (this is a post for Throwback Thursday):
https://www.japanesepod101.com/2006/10/25/beginner-lesson-140-colorful-cleanup/
Hope that helps :)
Jessi
Team JapanesePod101.com
Could you include a "Lesson notes lite" please? thanks again!:grin:
皆さん、お片付けの時間ですよ。お片付け嫌い。
色鉛筆の箱は何処？ここだよ。色鉛筆は、ここにあるよ。灰色、白、黒、茶色、桃色、オレンジがあるよ。ここにもあるよ。青、赤、黄色、黄緑、緑、水色、紫がある。
ここで全部。
また、明日。
Hi Marcus,
Thank you for pointing this out! We will get that fixed ;)
Hello there,
Great lesson - thank you!
Just noticed, though, that in the transcript you have しゃいろ for brown. Shouldn't this be ちゃいろ (茶色) instead? Or have I made a mistake?
All the best and thank you again,
Marcus
このかいえは丁かわいいね。＾＿＿＿＿＿＾:razz:
大好きですよ。色についべんきょなりました。
そのコッメントを遅く送くってにごめんなさい。
子供に話しているの時の敬称の」お」を加えることについて、説明を提案したいんです。日本で世界の物と大人の物を尊敬は大事ですから敬称の」お」を使うことはその尊敬が子供に見せると思います。大人の時はそんな強意強調は必要がありません。
その説明はどうと思いますか？
ミクジ
PS: did you understand my Japanese? If not can you tell me where I got it wrong?
I meant to say that the reason the honorific prefix is used for children is to instil respect for the world and for things adults believe are worthy of respect.
Pop Quiz... What color means GO! on a traffic stop light!
青 of course!
It's interesting that 緑is one of the noun-adjectives, while most of the colors are verbal-adjectives (-i adjectives)
There are many theories as to why Japanese people call traffic lights blue... but actually, it's all about perspective. After all... green is really just a yellowy blue, anyway. the Japanese word for 青 encompasses greens as well.
Here are a few color-related stories this conversation reminded me of.
1) Although it sound apocryphal, a friend of mine actually tried to complement a woman on her colorful dress, and thought that he had heard the word somewhere for "colorful". Those of you who know Japanese can smell this one coming . . . "Iroppoi fuku wa sutteki desu ne." Embarrassed twitters all around. Correct translation: "Your sexy dress is really nice."
2) An Irish friend of mine is named Ruairi. In Japan it is not uncommon to name girls after colors such as Midori and Momo. So when he and his Japanese wife had a daughter, they named her るりこ (るり子), which translated directly would be "Azure-child". The "Ruri" comes from "瑠璃",
which is the gemstone lapis lazuli that renaissance artists (who could afford it) crushed up and used as the bright blue pigment in their paintings. Bottom line: now Ruairi and his daughter's name are pronounced the same, except for the "ko" at the end of her name.
There were a fair number of colours in the pdf that I didn't know 水色 for instance, although this will be easy to remember. 茜色 is new to me as well. I like the rikaichan provided meaning 'madder red'. The first kanji means 'madder'. So is this the colour you go when you get angry?
藤色 has the kanji for wisteria. My father has one growing over his garage, and it is indeed a lilac colour. I suppose that wisteria are more common than lilacs in japan, so the colour is named after the local plant :)
藍色 Rikaichan comes up with 'indigo' for the first Kanji and 'indigo-blue' when 色 is added to the end. I can't think of anything memorable for this one.
I liked the prefix and suffix stuff. Can you use -ppoi with things other than colours?
My favourite color is 緑, but I'm also very fond of 茶色、赤とピンク。:cool: