How To Name And Pronounce Colors In German

Color words are one of the most useful tools we have for identifying things. It’s a lot easier to say “I’ll have the blue one” than “I’ll take that roundish one, with the rough edges, to the left of the rectangular one.” Thus, learning how to name and pronounce colors in German is a useful skill to have in your back pocket.

A brief usage note: colors in German are adjectives and so, for the most part, they come before the noun when you’re describing something. “The red car” would be “das rote Auto.” Here, there is also often an ending -e added when the color comes before a noun. And when you want to say “light blue” or “dark blue” the words for “light” and “dark” are appended to the front of the color word, as you see with hellblau (light blue). With that knowledge, here are the basic terms to get you started as you learn German.

the color — die Farbe

red — rot

orange — orange

yellow — gelb

green — grün

blue — blau

light blue — hellblau

dark blue — dunkelblau

purple — lila

pink — rosa

brown — braun

black — schwarz

white — weiß

light — hell

dark — dunkel