La Couleur: How To Say The Colors In French

Blog

25 October 2022

By Sarah Angela Almaden

Unsplash: Jurij Kenda

If you're just tapping into the world of French New Wave, I'd recommend watching any of Jean Luc-Godard's movies, like Le Mépris, Masculin féminin, Ici et Ailleurs, À bout de souffle, Pierrot Le Fou, La Chinoise, Deux ou trois choses que je sais d'elle, Paris vu par, Une femme est une femme, and Film Socialisme, to name a few. By watching some of Godard's acclaimed movies, you'll get a deeper appreciation for the beauty of storytelling and the sound of the French language. All these and more, making you feel alive and intrigued scene after scene.

Then, there’s the Godard color palette. His use of the bold primary colors (Red, Blue, and Yellow) throughout his movies always set the mood of the scene. These colors were used for more than just aesthetics, as they became important parts of his signature style. But do we know what these words are called en français?

French Colors Housekeeping:

when describing a plural noun using the color adjectives, the colors will end with the letter “S”
to modify the color adjective to agree with a feminine noun it is describing, just add the letter “E” to the end
color adjectives must agree with the grammatical gender and the number of the noun it is modifying
      ◦    colors that end in the letter "E" remain the same whether the noun is masculine
           or feminine; to make them plural, simply add the letter "S"
      ◦    orange (orange) and marron (brown) never change no matter the number and
           grammatical gender it is describing