French Adjectives - Agreement in Colour Words

French colour words, like other adjectives, must change their forms depending on whether the nouns they are describing are masculine (le/un words) or feminine (la/une words) and singular or plural.

Eg. le crayon noir (the black pencil)
      les crayons noirs (the black pencils)
      la chaussure noire (the black shoe)
      les chaussures noires (the black shoes)

Masculine Singular	Masculine Plural	Feminine Singular	Feminine Plural
vert	verts	verte	vertes
noir	noirs	noire	noires
violet	violets	violette	violettes
brun	bruns	brune	brunes
gris	gris	grise	grises
bleu	bleus	bleue	bleues
blanc	blancs	blanche	blanches

The colours below are the same whether they are masculine or feminine.

Masculine Singular	Masculine Plural	Feminine Singular	Feminine Plural
rouge	rouges	rouge	rouges
jaune	jaunes	jaune	jaunes
rose	roses	rose	roses
orange	oranges	orange	oranges

Can you translate the colours in the chart above?

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Using Colour Words

In French the colour words come after the nouns that they describe.

For example:
une pomme rouge = a red apple (an apple, red)

See if you can translate the following phrases:

une tomate rouge
un chien brun
une banane jaune
une carotte orange
le céleri vert

Try our Colour Wordsearch and Colour Crossword Puzzles.

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Pronouns

Instead of having a separate pronoun such as it to refer to things, French uses il (he, it) to replace masculine nouns and elle (she, it) to replace feminine nouns.

The book is black. It is black.
Le livre est noir. Il est noir.

The tomato is red. It is red.
La tomate est rouge. Elle est rouge

Plural nouns follow the same pattern.

The bananas are yellow. They are yellow.
Les bananas sont jaunes. Elles sont jaunes.

The pencils are green. They are green.
Les crayons sont verts. Ils sont verts.

Notice that the colour words must be plural if the noun that they describe is plural!

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What colour is it?

To ask what colour something is, use the phrase "De quelle couleur...?"

What colour is the book?
De quelle couleur est le livre?

The book is red.
Le livre est rouge.

What colour is the cat?
De quelle couleur est le chat?

The cat is black.
Le chat est noir.

Try our Colour Wordsearch and Colour Crossword Puzzles.

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Visit our sponsor Nallenart for French Curriculum for your school or homeschool.

Les couleurs: Colours

rouge = red
bleu = blue
jaune = yellow
orange = orange
violet = purple
vert = green
brun = brown
noir = black
blanc = white

Try our French Colour Quiz!
Take the quiz!