Even in the bleakest Scandinavian winters, Norway is filled with pops of color. There are vibrant houses, beautiful fjords and, if you’re lucky, the Northern Lights. Imagine being there without the words to describe the sights you’re seeing! To help you avoid that, we created this guide for naming and pronouncing colors in Norwegian.
Before getting to the words, a brief note on how to use the terms in a sentence. Norwegian color terms have to agree with the words they’re describing, whether they be masculine, feminine or neuter. Below, we list each form of the color words and indicate when they’d be used, but you’ll have to determine what kind of noun you’re describing. Also, the adjective comes before the noun in Norwegian, so “red apples” would be røde epler. With that knowledge, here are the words!
a color — en farge
red — rød (masc.), rødt (neut.), røde (plur.)
orange — oransje (masc., neut., plur.)
yellow — gul (masc.), gult (neut.), gule (plur.)
green — grønn (masc.), grønt (neut.), grønne (plur.)
blue — blå (masc., plur.), blått (neut.)
purple — lilla (masc., neut., plur.)
pink — rosa (masc., neut., plur.)
brown — brun (masc.), brunt (neut.), brune (plur.)
black — svart (masc., neut.), svarte (plur.)
white — hvit (masc.), hvitt (neut.), hvite (plur.)
light — lys
dark — mørk