Colors in German

The brown dog. The yellow cheese. The pink flowers. Let's learn the colors, in German.


Learning the colors in German is important, in order to to be able to describe the things around you. In this lesson, we're going to have a look at basic & complementary colors, as well as words for different shades in German (e.g. dark blue, light green).

Basic Colours in German

Take a look at this table of basic colors:

color
red
blue
yellow
green
black
Flashcards
1 / 7
die Farbe

Listen to the recordings and repeat the words out loud, to familiarise yourself with them.

You'll notice that some of the words for colors in German are similar to those in English:

Der Apfel ist rot.

The apple is red.
Der Himmel ist blau.

The sky is blue.

Whilst others are totally different:

Die Fledermaus ist schwarz.

The bat is black.
Die Banane ist gelb.

The banana is yellow.

To memorise the colors, it may be helpful to intentionally associate each color with a specific image. For example, it might help to envision a black bat in your head whilst thinking of the word schwarz. Once that image is strongly associated with the word, the next time you see schwarz in writing, you'll be reminded of the bat, and will know what color is meant!

Complementary Colors in German

Here are some other common colors worth learning.

orange
pink
brown
grey
violet
violet
Flashcards
1 / 9
orange

Shades & Hues

Lastly, here are two important words that will come in handy in this section:

light
dark

In German, we may compound hell or dunkel with a color to create new, more specific words:

light red
dark red
light blue
dark blue
Flashcards
1 / 4
hellrot

Well done 🎉!

You have learned the German colors! Now we may use these words to describe the subject or object in a sentence.

What other adjectives could we use? Head over to the next lesson on German adjectives, to find out.



Podcast

Explore Our Podcast

Explore our intermediate podcast about contemporary German culture, history, philosophy & more. Each episode is spoken at a slow pace, and includes a transcript.

About

Sloeful German is a language learning platform focused on immersive learning. We assist you in achieving fluency, through engaging content tailored to your level.
Downloads

Follow

Join Us