Learning colors in French (Les Couleurs) really isn't that difficult. You'll find that you'll be able to name all the primary colors in no time. Whether you'd like to prepare for a shopping spree in a French-speaking country or looking for the pronunciation of colors related to genders (pink for girls, blue for boys) this lessons has the answers you need. Whatever your reason, learning French words for colors is a fun way to increase your essential French vocabulary and get the hang of a few basic grammar concepts.

Unlike in English, the words for colors appear after nouns in French. So if you were to say "pink shirt" in French the proper word order would be "shirt pink".

Light and Dark Shades of the Color

There are two useful words that will enable you to describe the shade of a color -- clair for light and foncé for dark. Simply add the desired modifier to the name of a color to describe a new shade as shown in the examples below.

The good news is that colors formed with the help of clair and foncé don't follow the rules of agreement. In other words, there is only one form to use in all possible situations. For example, if you wanted to say "he has light blue eyes" in French you would have to use the dictionary form of the color bleu without any changes: il a les yeux bleu clair

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Agreement with Nouns and Pronouns

If you look into your French dictionary you will notice that all words for colors are adjectives. An adjective is a word that describes nouns and pronouns. In French language, all adjectives agree in gender (masculine or feminine) and number (singular or plural) with the nouns and pronous that they modify. For instance, if you wanted say that you have blue eyes (eyes = yeux - masculine plural) then you'd have to select the matching masculine plural form of the color blue (bleus). You may want to dedicate more time to practicing the agreement of adjectives with the words that they describe. The following table will help you to learn many different forms that words for colors assume depending on whether they modify masculine, feminine, singular or plural nouns and pronouns. You will find that some colors are much easier to learn then the rest as they have exactly the same form in all genders and numbers.

Review French Colors

Watch the video below to hear the colors pronounced in French. Repeating the French names of colors once again will help you memorize the new French vocabulary for good.