Colours are hues that can be mixed together to create new colours, or used on their own. The primary colours vocabulary include red, blue, and yellow. Colours are properties of objects that we perceive with eyes. Colours can also be described by their level of lightness or darkness, which is called their value. A colour’s value can be light, medium, or dark.
According to the intensity of the light, colours have different degree of lightness and shades. There are many tones of colours but we name just a small number of them in our daily life.
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⬤ Names of colours in English
Names of colours are basic English vocabulary, so it is essential to learn them well. The word “color” is common in United States but “colour” is common in the other English spoken countries. Here is a brief information about colours:
- The widely known colours are: red, green, blue, yellow, black, white, orange, pink, purple, brown
- Shades of colours are expressed with “light” which means it is closer to white and “dark” which means it is closer to dark.
Examples: light green, dark green - You can use the suffix “-ish” to mean “not exactly but approximate”
Examples: reddish, blueish - Colours are adjectives. This means it is used before nouns.
Examples: a red car, my blue jeans, the big white mountain etc. - You can use colours with “verb to be”
Examples:
It is a yellow flower.
The flower is yellow.
Yellow is my favourite colour.
The yellow flower is in the vase. - The colour “gray” is usually used in the U.S., but “grey” is mostly used in Britain and other countries.
⬤ Colors vocabulary with images
⬤ Names of colours
- red
- white
- blue
- yellow
- orange
- black
- pink
- purple
- brown
- navy blue
- violet
- beige
- grey
- green
- silver
- olive
- gold
- turquoise
- light green
- dark green
SIMILAR PAGES:
❯❯ Art vocabulary
❯❯ Photography vocabulary
⬤ Colours game
⬤ Colours Flashcards
⬤ Flip cards
⬤ Colours in daily communication
- I have got blue eyes.
- My bike is red.
- This is a purple ball.
- Is that green?
- I like black caps.
- They are white.
- There is a black cat under the tree.
- Pink is my favourite colour.
- The blue car is in the garden.
- I have a blue car.
- Emily has got dark green eyes.
- She has reddish shoes.
- It is a nice day. The sky is blue and there are some white clouds in the sky. Green grass lie under my feet. I am very happy.
How to ask questions about colours: We use “What colour….?” to ask colours in English.
What colour is it? > It is yellow.
What colour is your hair? My hair is black.
What colour are they? > They are pink.
What colour is her dress? > It is white and green.
“What is your favourite colour?”
My favourite colour is orange. (It is orange.)
Note: You can use “light” to mean less in degree and “dark” to mean more in degree while expressing colours.
a light green table cloth
a dark brown chair
MY FAVOURITE COLOURS
I like blue. Blue is my favourite colour. My cap is blue and my T-shirts are blue. I wear blue-jeans, too. But my sister wears pink because she likes pink. All her dresses are pink. My mother likes wearing different colours. She likes green most. My father prefers black, because he wears suits at work. What about you? What is your favourite colour?
⬤ Colours exercises
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⬤ Colours Worksheets
| Colours worksheets | ||
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| • Colours flashcards worksheet | 
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| • Colours activity worksheet | 
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| • Colours word scramble game worksheet | 
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| • Colours word search puzzle worksheet | 
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External resource links:
We tried to give enough information about the colours in English. You can also click here to watch a video about colours or here to do an exercise.