This document provides a list of common color adjectives in French and their pronunciations. It notes that in French, color adjectives typically follow the noun they modify. Examples of common colors given are beige, blanc, bleu, brun, gris, jaune, noir, orange, rose, rouge, vert, and violet. The document also lists some less common color terms like abricot, argent, bronze, café, chamois, and turquoise that generally behave more like nouns. Exceptions to adjective agreement for feminine and plural forms are also discussed.
This document provides a list of common color adjectives in French and their pronunciations. It notes that in French, color adjectives typically follow the noun they modify. Examples of common colors given are beige, blanc, bleu, brun, gris, jaune, noir, orange, rose, rouge, vert, and violet. The document also lists some less common color terms like abricot, argent, bronze, café, chamois, and turquoise that generally behave more like nouns. Exceptions to adjective agreement for feminine and plural forms are also discussed.
This document provides a list of common color adjectives in French and their pronunciations. It notes that in French, color adjectives typically follow the noun they modify. Examples of common colors given are beige, blanc, bleu, brun, gris, jaune, noir, orange, rose, rouge, vert, and violet. The document also lists some less common color terms like abricot, argent, bronze, café, chamois, and turquoise that generally behave more like nouns. Exceptions to adjective agreement for feminine and plural forms are also discussed.
This document provides a list of common color adjectives in French and their pronunciations. It notes that in French, color adjectives typically follow the noun they modify. Examples of common colors given are beige, blanc, bleu, brun, gris, jaune, noir, orange, rose, rouge, vert, and violet. The document also lists some less common color terms like abricot, argent, bronze, café, chamois, and turquoise that generally behave more like nouns. Exceptions to adjective agreement for feminine and plural forms are also discussed.
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
Download as docx, pdf, or txt
You are on page 1/ 2
French Phrases: Colours in French
On this page, we look at some common French colour adjectives. On the following page, we look at some common colour modifiers (light, dark etc) and how to combine colours or form complex colour terms ("blue-green", "navy blue" etc).
Common colour adjectives in French
The folllowing are common French colour adjectives. Where there is a pronunciation difference between masculine and feminine forms, both are shown in that order. In the written form, these adjectives generally behave like other French adjectives: an -e is added in the feminine (where not already there) and/or an -s in the plural. Exceptions are flagged and discussed in the corresponding notes below. beige blanc, blanche bleu brun, brune chtain, chtaine gris, grise jaune marron1 mauve noir orange2 rose rouge vert, verte violet, violette
b bl, bl bl b, byn at, atn gi, giz jon mao mov nwa o oz u v, vt vjle, vjlt
beige white blue brown brown, chestnut-brown (hair) grey yellow brown mauve, light purple black orange pink red green violet, purple
Suggest a change / proposez une modification
Notes: 1. marron is identical in the feminine. 2. Prescriptively, orange is usually considered invariable. Since it already ends in -e, this just affects whether or not to add an -s in the plural, and prescriptive usage would thus dictate des robes orange. Actual usage is tending to write oranges (and to pluralise other "invariable" adjectives) in the plural. Note that this is purely a spelling issue: in pronunciation, this and most colours are invariable.
In French, colour adjectives almost always follow the noun that they describe. Thus: une robe bleue une chemise marron deux voitures vertes
- a blue dress - a brown shirt - two green cars
Less common colours
The following words are also used to denote colour. In the majority of cases, they behave more like nouns than adjectives: they don't change in the feminine or plural1. abricot argent bronze caf chamois champagne chtaigne crme carlate indigo jade lilas noisette olive or paille pourpre safran saumon spia turquoise
abiko a boz kafe amwa panj atng km ekalat digo ad lila nwazt oliv
Notes: 1. In prescriptive usage at least, it appears to be accepted (cf Thomas 1971:105; Price 2003:105) that specifically carlate and pourpre are not invariable and so take -s in the plural. The reasoning behind this distinction is not entirely clear, since there is no possible pronunciation difference, and in writing there appears to be a general tendency towards pluralising "invariable" adjectives/nouns.
