Day 15 | Colours

Back from my business trip in Rome and then contracted a nasty cold which I'm still suffering from (poor me).  That meant learning Italian last week instead of what I should really be doing, which is keeping up with my Greek.  Because of this I'm easing myself into it with some colours to brighten up the horizon.  Below are some of the main ones (I'm not interested in Falu Red, Xanadu, Caput Mortuum or Arsenic and I'm not sure they even exist in Greek).  

Orange	πορτοκαλί	portokalee
Green	πράσινο	Prasinoh
Red	κόκκινο	Kokkeenoh
Black	μαύρο	mahvroh
Grey	γκρί	Gree
White	άσπρο	asproh
Blue	μπλε	bleh
Yellow	κίτρινο	kitrinoh
Brown	καφέ	kafe
Pink	ροζ	roz

Now this is Greek remember so here comes the complications. In English we can describe nouns with colours (a black dog, a white cloud etc) and the colour does not change form.  This is because there is no sense of gender.  However, in Greek the above list shows the neutral colours.  When we apply them to a gender specific noun however as an adjective, these will change. 

This is a black dog

αυτός είναι ένα mαύρος σκύλος

aftos eenah enah mavros skylos

This is my red blouse

αυτή είναι η κόκκινη μπλούζα μου

aftee eenah e kokkinee bloozah mou

Note how the colour is changing as we put them alongside gender specific nouns.  The black goes from the neutral μαύρο to the masculine μαύρος.  The red goes from κόκκινο to female κόκκινη.  So again, we're not learning one word but three (although you might argue we learn the neutral and then use the formula for translating it to male and female with the use of -ος and -η).  

I think I'll look at animals next for the intrigue more than anything (guessing a lot of English words that end with -ios).



Written by JuiceSoup.com