Colors and Numbers Review

The World of Colors in German#

Colors make the world beautiful, and knowing color words in German will help you describe everything around you! In German, the word for color is die Farbe (dee far-beh), and colors in general are called die Farben (dee far-ben).

The Basic Colors#

Let us learn all the main colors in German:

• rot (rote) — red
• blau (blaow) — blue
• gelb (gelp) — yellow
• grün (grüen) — green
• orange (oh-rahn-zheh) — orange (very similar to English!)
• lila (lee-lah) — purple
• rosa (roh-zah) — pink
• weiß (vice) — white
• schwarz (shvarts) — black
• braun (brown) — brown (this one sounds just like English!)
• grau (graow) — gray

That is eleven colors! Do you notice that some German color words look or sound similar to English words? Blau sounds like "blue", braun sounds like "brown", and orange is almost the same! When two languages share similar words, these are called cognates, and they make learning much easier.

Asking About Colors#

The question "What color is it?" in German is:

"Welche Farbe hat es?" (vel-kheh far-beh hat es) — What color dös it have?

Or more simply:

"Was für eine Farbe ist das?" (vahs führ eye-neh far-beh ist dahs) — What color is that?

And the answer:

"Es ist rot." (es ist rote) — It is red. "Es ist blau." — It is blue.

Colors in Sentences#

Now let us combine colors with things we already know:

• Der Stift ist blau. — The pencil is blue.
• Das Buch ist rot. — The book is red.
• Die Tafel ist schwarz. — The board is black.
• Meine Haare sind braun. — My hair is brown. ("sind" means "are" when talking about multiple things)

A Color Güssing Game#

Here is a fun game: Look around your room and pick an object. In your head, think of its German color name. Then say: "Ich sehe etwas... und es ist ___!" (ikh zeh-eh et-vahs... oont es ist) — I see something... and it is ___!

This is like "I Spy" in German! Your friends have to güss what object you are looking at. You can also add hints like "Es ist groß" (it is big) or "Es ist klein" (it is small).

• groß (grohs) — big
• klein (kline) — small

Learning colors is one of the most practical things you can do in a new language because you use color words every single day!