Colors in Chinese: Names, Meanings, Taiwan Usage
Chinese words for colors with pinyin: the 色 pattern, everyday color names, traffic lights, red envelopes, and what red, white and green signal in Taiwan.
Most Chinese color words follow one pattern: the color character plus 色 (sè, color). Red is 紅色 (hóng sè), blue is 藍色 (lán sè), black is 黑色 (hēi sè). To ask someone’s favorite color, say 你喜歡什麼顏色？ (nǐ xǐ huān shén me yán sè?), and to answer, 我喜歡藍色 (wǒ xǐ huān lán sè).
The second thing to know is that 色 often drops away. The single character is enough in many phrases: 紅燈 (hóng dēng, red light), 白飯 (bái fàn, plain white rice), 黃金 (huáng jīn, gold). When you describe an object with a color, 的 (de) usually follows: 這件衣服是紅的 (zhè jiàn yī fu shì hóng de, this piece of clothing is red).
The rest of this page gives the list, then the part a vocabulary table cannot show: what the colors mean in Taiwan.
The basic colors
| Color | Chinese | Pinyin |
|---|---|---|
| red | 紅色 | hóng sè |
| orange | 橘色 / 橙色 | jú sè / chéng sè |
| yellow | 黃色 | huáng sè |
| green | 綠色 | lǜ sè |
| blue | 藍色 | lán sè |
| purple | 紫色 | zǐ sè |
| pink | 粉紅色 | fěn hóng sè |
| brown | 咖啡色 / 棕色 | kā fēi sè / zōng sè |
| black | 黑色 | hēi sè |
| white | 白色 | bái sè |
| gray | 灰色 | huī sè |
| gold | 金色 | jīn sè |
| silver | 銀色 | yín sè |
A few notes on this table:
- Orange has two common forms. 橘色 is built from 橘子 (jú zi, mandarin orange), and the Ministry of Education dictionary lists 橙色. You can use either.
- Brown is often 咖啡色, literally “coffee color”, and 棕色 comes from the color of palm fibre. Both are normal.
- 綠 (lǜ) has a literary reading, lù, that the dictionary lists. For the color it is lǜ.
- Pink is 粉紅色, built from 粉 (fěn, powder) and 紅 (red).
To say light or dark, put 淺 (qiǎn, light, pale) or 深 (shēn, deep, dark) in front: 淺藍色 (qiǎn lán sè, light blue), 深藍色 (shēn lán sè, dark blue).
The 青 problem
青 (qīng) is the color word English speakers find hardest to place. The Ministry of Education dictionary lists green as its first meaning, and it appears in words for things that are green or blue-green: 青菜 (qīng cài, leafy greens), 青蛙 (qīng wā, frog). It is not one of the basic color words in the table. In everyday description, use 綠色 for green and 藍色 for blue, and recognise 青 inside compounds.
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Traffic lights
The whole signal is called 紅綠燈 (hóng lǜ dēng), literally red-green light. Red means stop and green means go, which the dictionary summarises as 紅燈停，綠燈行 (hóng dēng tíng, lǜ dēng xíng).
| Light | Chinese | Pinyin |
|---|---|---|
| red | 紅燈 | hóng dēng |
| yellow | 黃燈 | huáng dēng |
| green | 綠燈 | lǜ dēng |
| run a red light | 闖紅燈 | chuǎng hóng dēng |
闖紅燈 is a phrase you will see in road-safety notices and hear when someone crosses against the signal. The word 闖 (chuǎng) means to rush in or break through.
Red: celebration, money and success
Red is the color of celebration in Chinese culture. The 紅包 (hóng bāo) is the red envelope: the Ministry of Education dictionary describes it as money given on festive occasions, named for the red envelope it comes in. People give 紅包 at Lunar New Year and weddings.
The amount matters as well as the color. In Taiwan, red envelopes for weddings and other happy occasions hold an even amount, and the digit 4 is avoided because 四 (sì) sounds like 死 (sǐ, death). The guide to Chinese homophones and lucky numbers explains this pattern.
Red also describes success and popularity. 走紅 (zǒu hóng) means to become well known, and 很紅 (hěn hóng) says someone or something is popular right now. 紅利 (hóng lì) is a dividend, a share of profit.
White and funerals
White sits at the other end. At funerals in Taiwan, the money given to the family is placed in a white envelope, a 白包 (bái bāo), and the amount is an odd number. A red envelope would be wrong there, and a white envelope at a wedding would be wrong too. The occasion is 喪事 (sāng shì, funeral matters), and the opposite word for a happy occasion is 喜事 (xǐ shì).
White also appears in plain, unmarked things: 白開水 (bái kāi shuǐ, plain boiled water), 白飯 (bái fàn, plain rice), 白菜 (bái cài, napa cabbage), 白天 (bái tian, daytime).
Green: go, and a hat to avoid
綠色 is the color of plants and of 綠燈, and it has two cultural uses that matter in Taiwan.
- Green hat. 綠帽 (lǜ mào) is an old figure of speech for a husband whose wife has been unfaithful. The dictionary describes it as a way of mocking infidelity, and the phrase is 戴綠帽 (dài lǜ mào, to wear a green hat). A green cap as a present can raise eyebrows.
- Political camps. In Taiwan, 藍 (blue) and 綠 (green) also name the two broad political camps, with 泛藍 (fàn lán) and 泛綠 (fàn lǜ) as the group names. A news item about 藍綠 is usually about politics.
Yellow, black and the rest
- 黃色 (huáng sè) is a plain color word, and in some phrases it means sexually explicit, as in 黃色笑話 (huáng sè xiào huà, a dirty joke). Use the color word for the color and watch the context.
- 黑色 (hēi sè) appears in negative compounds: 黑名單 (hēi míng dān, blacklist) and 黑心 (hēi xīn, heartless, unscrupulous). The dictionary defines 黑心 as cruel and conscience-less, and in Taiwan news you often see it in 黑心商品 (hēi xīn shāng pǐn, goods sold by unscrupulous sellers).
- 紅茶 (hóng chá) means black tea, and the literal red is the color of the brewed liquid. 綠茶 (lǜ chá) is green tea, and 烏龍茶 (wū lóng chá) is oolong, a partly fermented tea the dictionary lists as produced in Fujian, Guangdong and Taiwan.
Color vocabulary is among the most shared between Taiwan and the mainland. The basic words are the same, and the differences show up in idioms, politics and local habits.
Practice
Dangdai Book 1 Lesson 10 introduces colors and descriptions, and the Lesson 10 overview gives the context if you are working through the book. For retention, put each color on a card with the color itself on the front and the Chinese on the back. A swatch is a better prompt than the English word.
Related reading
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