About Colors

[Nemian]

The other thread discussing what akatsuki means showed me that this thread would be a good idea.

Now, some Japanese colors like green(midori) and purple(murasaki) are written with no hiragana attached: 緑(green) 紫(purple). Others are written with a kanji plus the hiragana for i, for example: 赤い(red)　青い(blue). And yet other colors must be written with the kanji for color, like gray: 灰色(literally, ash color = gray).

Usage of the single kanji and paired kanji color words does not require any special rules (as far as I recall, but with only JLPT level 2, Im prolly forgetting something, heh.)

However, the words ending with a い　must be conjugated. For example, to say red moon, you do not say 赤い月(akaitsuki), but 赤月(akatsuki). And some words for baby are 赤ん坊(akanbou) or 赤ちゃん(akachan). Typically, with the -い color words, you only use it in -い　form　when using it as a noun in a sentence, such as 空が赤いです。(The sky is red.)

And to make matters worse, Japanese often use the word 青い(aoi) to talk about not just the color blue, but also the color green. I have asked many Japanese about this, and still have recieved no logical explanation.

Hope this helps those interested in learning Japanese. And if you see I made a mistake, please tell me! I'm trying to improve my Japanese to JLPT level 1 skill, and sometimes I just forget this relatively simple stuff.

[maiyahi]

Alot of asian countries do not diferantiate between green and blue. They see blue as a shade of green or vice versa. Its like if Japan had a differant "major color name" for baby blue, but then just called navy and cerulean "blue." And the reason you conjugate Akai into AKAtsuki is because Akai is an "i-adjective" and they have need for declention. Midori is a "na-adjective." Both are conjugated, but you only see the conjugation in this instance with "i-adjectives." You can say Kuroboshi or kuroiboshi to mean "Black Star" (from White room, black star ; Straightener) When using that its more of a taste deal, like in American English saying "do not" and "don't."

[Shunko]

Dunno if this means anything at all, but in Chinese, 青 actually means "green", same with 绿.

[painsama]

Basically colors in japanese can be divided into two types, colors that are い adjectives, and colors that are noun;

Colors that are い adjectives:
赤い、青い、黒い、黄色い 、白い

Colors that are nouns:
緑色、茶色、紫色、灰色、橙色、金色、銀色

You drop い from い adjective to form a compound noun (い adjective + noun form):
赤月、青空
i.e to turn い adjective into a noun 赤、青 and make a compound noun.

For words that are already nouns, like the colors that fall into noun type, you use this (noun + noun) pattern to make a compound noun:
銀月、灰羽

Or if you don't want to use it as compound noun/word, just use it in normal way:
(い adjective + noun):
青いそら、黒いこころ、赤い月

(noun + の + noun)
銀色の月、金色の星、灰色の羽

no problem using い adjective in noun form though this way:
青の空

So, for 赤ん坊, I would think of:
(い adjective in noun form + no + noun): 赤の坊 --> 赤ん坊

p/s just revised on this part though... ^_^ hope that would help