Colors in Japanese — Vocabulary and a Grammar Quirk
28 June 2026 · Mozhippattru Japanese Language School
Colours are easy vocabulary — with one fun grammar quirk worth knowing.
Basic colors
- 赤 (aka) — red · 青 (ao) — blue · 黄色 (kiiro) — yellow
- 緑 (midori) — green · 黒 (kuro) — black · 白 (shiro) — white
- 茶色 (chairo) — brown · 紫 (murasaki) — purple · ピンク (pinku) — pink
The adjective quirk
A few colours are true い-adjectives: 赤い (red), 青い (blue), 黄色い (yellow), 黒い (black), 白い (white). Others (green, brown, purple) are nouns and need な or の to describe things: 緑の車 (a green car).
Examples
赤いりんご (a red apple — adjective) vs 紫の花 (a purple flower — noun + の).
Learn which colours are adjectives and which are nouns, and you'll describe anything accurately.
Arul Prakash founded and personally teaches at Mozhippattru. He cleared JLPT N1 largely through self-study and spent 4 years as a Japanese interpreter for Fujitsu, Toyota and Sango — and now teaches Japanese in Tamil to beginners across India.
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