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To make most French colors agree with a feminine noun, you just have to add an “e” to the end.

The ultimate guide to French colors (and their pronunciation)

May 13, 2019

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The colors in French seem like an easy thing to learn. After all, it’s just vocabulary to memorize, right?

Pas tout à fait (Not exactly).

The most common French words for colors are pretty easy to nenorize. They are bleu (blue), rouge (red), vert (green), jaune (yellow), blanc (white), noir (black), gris (gray), rose (pink), violet (purple), marron (brown) and orange (orange.)

But colors aren’t just a practical way to describe things. They can also add shade and nuance to your knowledge of a culture, and shed some light on a number of common expressions. That’s why many of the conversations that make up the French Together app contain words related to colors.

Let’s take a nuanced look at the colors in French

French color rules

Any blog post about colors should, of course, give you a list of the most common ones. But before I do that, I want to talk about how colors are used in the French language.

As a general rule, all colors in French are masculine nouns: le bleu, le rouge, le rose, etc. Example : « Quelle est ta couleur préférée ? » « Le rose.» (‘What’s your favorite color?’ ‘Pink.’)

However, as you might have noticed in that example, the word “color” in French is feminine – la couleur. Sigh….

So, you could say, J’aime la couleur de ses yeux. (I love the color of his eyes.) or J’aime le bleu de ses yeux. (I love the blue of his eyes.)

Most of the time, though, colors are used as adjectives. In this case, they follow the French grammar rule of agreeing with the noun(s) they modify. This means that it’s not enough to know that blanc means “white”; if a noun is feminine, blanc becomes blanche

And as you’ve probably guessed, it doesn’t stop there.  If a noun is plural, blanc becomes blancs or blanches.

The good news is, unlike blanc, to make most French colors agree with a feminine noun, you just have to add an “e” to the end. For example, bleu becomes bleue.

And colors that already end in “e” stay the same, whether a noun is masculine or feminine (of course, you do still have to add an “s” to them if they’re used in the plural sense).

There are two exceptions to these rules, though: orange (orange) and marron (brown) NEVER CHANGE. Regardless of the gender or number of whatever they’re modifying, they stay the same. 

For example:  

Michelle a deux chiennes marron et un chien blanc, et Danielle a trois chiens marron et quatre chiennes noires. (Michelle has two brown dogs and one white dog, and Danielle has three brown dogs and four black dogs.)  

Tu veux terminer ce paquet de bonbons ? J’aime toutes les autres couleurs – les rouges, les verts, les jaunes, mais je déteste les bonbons orange.  (Do you want to finish this bag of candy? I like all of the other colors – red, green, yellow, but I hate the orange candies.)

French colors do follow one easy grammar rule, though: They always come after the noun(s) they modify, with the occasional exception for poetic reasons.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s look at a list of the most common colors in French.

The most common colors in French

Wondering how to say red, yellow or blue in French?

Here are the most common French colors and their translation:

How to talk about colors in French

colorful markers

From the practical, to the technical, to the poetic, there are many ways to precisely or lyrically describe a color. 

But there’s a catch. If you use an adverb with a French color, the color no longer has to agree with the noun(s) that proceed it. Consequentially, when paired with a color, these adverbs will always be in their singular, masculine forms.

For example: Pour son enterrement de vie de jeune fille, Patricia porte une perruque vert clair. (For her bachelorette party, Patricia is wearing a light green wig.).  

Because perruque is a feminine noun, the adjective(s) associated with it would normally have to reflect that. But since the color (vert) is modified by an adjective (clair), not so.

Here’s another example: Au zoo de Vincennes, Charles a passé longtemps à admirer les plumes bleu foncé de l’ara hyacinthe. (At the Vincennes Zoo, Charles spent a long time admiring the dark blue feathers of the hyacinth macaw.)

So, bearing that surprising grammar lesson in mind, here are a few useful words for talking about colors in French.:

foncé – dark. Ex: Sa robe est vert foncé. (Her dress is dark green.)

clair – light. Ex : Les yeux de Paul sont bleu clair. (Paul’s eyes are light blue.)

fluo – florescent. Ex : Au début des années 90, les couleurs fluos étaient très à la mode. (At the start of the 1990’s, florescent colors were very in.)

fade – faded, washed-out. Ex: Le papier-peint du salon était fade. Sylvie avait très envie de l’arracher des murs. (The living room wallpaper was faded. Sylvie felt an urge to rip it from the walls.)

âtre –  -ish. This suffix can be used with any color in French. Although the suffix “-ish” in English could be neutral or informal, in French, it often sounds a bit literary or poetic. You’ll often see colors described this way in books or poetry. Example: Il faisait très froid. Les lèvres de Joachim étaient bleuâtres. Sandrine avait très peur. (It was very cold. There was a bluish tint to Joachim’s lips. Sandrine was very afraid.)

This thread  reveals some very interesting things about -âtre. One notable thing to keep in mind is that it could be interpreted as derogatory in a situation where it would make more sense for something to simply be described with an unmodified color word. For example, if you say someone’s shirt is jaunâtre, it could be understood to mean that it’s washed-out or a strange or unpleasant shade of yellow; otherwise, why not just describe it as jaune? Of course, this all depends on context, as you can see from the example I used about Joachim’s lips.

vif – bright (literally, alive). Example : Elles se sont teint les cheveux en rose vif. (They dyed their hair bright pink.)

une nuance – a shade. If you’ve been to  French bookstore (in person or online) recently, you’ve probably seen the French translation of the notorious Fifty Shades of Gray series: Cinquante Nuances de Grey.

If you want to know more French colors and more advanced color vocabulary in French, this site is an excellent resource

A colorful exception: Talking about hair

The French colors I’ve listed are the basic ones you can use for just about anything. But when it comes to describing a person’s physical features, that’s not always the case.

When you talk about someone’s hair color, here are the words you use:

les cheveux

Notice that these are all in the masculine plural, since they have to agree with cheveux.

For unusual hair colors in French, just use the standard color word. If you want to specify that hair is dyed a certain color, you can say colorés en. For example, Meagan a les cheveux colorés en bleu. 

If you want to talk about people with a specific hair color, you use the hair color words, just like in English.:

For the other colors, just say aux cheveux noirs/gris/violets, etc. 

Note that while we use the word brun(e) to talk about brown hair, brown eyes are still the usual color name, marron.

French expressions with colors

colored pencils in a row on black background

There are many, many expressions with colors in French. Here are some of the most common.

And now, my favorite French color word… 

la grisaille – grayness. This word is used to describe overcast, cloudy, gloomy weather and the general ambiance that creates. It’s very common to hear it associated with the weather in Paris, where there’s often at least a few cloudy hours a day. The city’s iconic slate rooftops, which are very common in many neighborhoods, add to the grayness. La grisaille isn’t always used in a positive context – in fact, it tends to be negative, or neutral at best. But personally, dans la grisaille parisienne, je vois la vie en rose ! (In the grayness of Paris, I see life in a happy way!). 

The significance of colors in French

French flag waving in the wind
The French flag contains tricolor bands of blue, white and red.

So far, we’ve talked about the literal and figurative meanings of colors in French. But all cultures give colors another meaning, as well.

The French generally hold the same connotative definitions of colors as people in the rest of the Western world. For example, white is a color that symbolizes purity, which is why most French brides wear it. Red is a color of passion or danger, which is why warning signs, stop signs, but also sexy dresses and lipsticks are this color. Green is a color associated with nature and wellbeing, and so on. If you’d like to review or familiarize yourself with the basic meanings of colors in Western culture, here’s an article that can help. 

But beyond that, national identity and everyday life plays a role, too. So, when you read/watch/listen to something from France, or if you visit or live in France, you’ll notice that in addition to their literal meanings and Western culture-related connotations, there are some colors that hold a particular significance.

The most notable one is actually a combination of three colors: bleu, blanc, rouge (blue, white, red.) These are the colors of the French flag (always said in this order, since that’s how they appear on the flag). Sometimes, especially in a historical context, this trio is called la tricolore (the tri-colored flag). 

When the current French flag emerged after the 1789 Revolution, the blue and red were the colors of Paris and the white was the color of the royal House of Bourbon. Essentially, the flag encouraged unity between the king and the rest of the populace. Unfortunately, that did not end well….  

Today la tricolore symbolizes national pride and unity. It never inspires fervid patriotism the way that the US flag might; instead, the French see the flag as a reminder that all French citizens are supposed to be equal. It’s an ideal. Sometimes, you’ll hear the phrase bleu, blanc, beur – blue, white, Arab (beur is verlan (backwards slang) for arabe). Although the only minority group mentioned here is people of North African descent, the implication is that all people are French, regardless of their ethnicity or skin color.

Individually, bleu and rouge each have special significance to the French, as well. 

Les Bleus are the national football (soccer) team. Unlike the flag, talking about Les Bleus often will evoke a sort of passionate national pride. When there’s a match, or even in some other moment when it might seem appropriate, you’ll probably hear one of the French’s favorite phrases chanted from café terraces and other gathering places: Allez les Bleus! (Go Blues!). Like the flag, the team evokes an idealistic sense of equality, since the players come from many different ethnic, racial, religious, and social backgrounds. 

Unfortunately, I say “ideal” because like most places on earth, equality isn’t actually always the case. Under French law, all citizens have equal rights, but discrimination exists in many ways in French culture. Recently, for example, antisemitism has been on the rise. Add to that the seemingly never-ending prejudice against second- or third -generation immigrants from places like north and sub-Saharan Africa, especially those who live in or comme from la banlieue (the poor suburbs around Paris; roughly the equivalent of “inner city” in the United States).  There’s also prejudice against other immigrant groups, social classes, genders, sexual orientations, and so on.

In fact, many colors can be used in derogatory ways to describe people’s skin color. Generally, unless you have to describe someone in a context where race is important for identification – for example, if you’re reporting a missing person, avoid doing this. If you do have to describe a person’s skin color, never simply say “un/une [+color]”. In French, that’s racist.  Instead, say, C’est un homme/une femme blanc/blanche/noir/noire. NEVER describe someone as jaune – this is a racist way to describe people of Asian background; say asiatique instead.  

That’s not to say that France is a particularly hateful country. It’s just that, unfortunately, prejudice can be found anywhere and for any reason. At least the French tend to see the ideal as a society where it doesn’t exist, even if they can’t always reach that ideal.

Another color that has a special connotation to the French on its own is rouge. For the French, several colors are associated with politics or political issues, and red is a big one. It’s been associated with the extreme Left (Socialists, Communists, and other parties) since at least the mid- to late -19th century. 

The Verts (Green Party) are another political movement associated with a color. As you might have guessed, they’re Leftists who fight for environmental issues.

Currently, another color has some strong political associations for the French – well, in a certain form. You may have heard of the “Yellow Vests” (called Gilets Jaunes here in France). The Gilets Jaunes adopted their “uniform”, the kind of yellow vest you use to stay visible on the road at night, because it’s easy to find and accessible to just about any budget. They’re part of a movement that’s reacting against what they see as unreasonable taxes and price hikes on various things, from gas bills, to groceries. Within the movement, there are some variations – some people want the government to help the poor and the working class, while others just want to watch the world burn.  With that in mind, the Yellow Vests can mean different things to different people, but I don’t think yellow reflective vests will go back to being a completely neutral garment for a long time!

On a more fun note, the color pink in France is often associated with the sexual or the sentimental. You might remember from the list of expressions that le téléphone rose is a sex line, and un roman/une série à l’eau de rose means a sappy, sentimental novel or TV series (you can use à l’eau de rose to describe just about anything that’s overly sentimental, by the way).

What colors do French people like?

Blue mountain silhouettes
Blue is French people’s favorite color.

Everyone is different, and there are no hard and fast rules in France about what colors you should and shouldn’t wear. Still, when it comes to what’s generally deemed to be fashionable in terms of things like interior design and fashion, the French tend to prefer a more muted look, especially Parisians. For example, a typical Parisian apartment might have a parquet floor (especially if it’s an old building), white walls with some artwork or shelves, and maybe a few colorful accents. 

As for clothing, while some particular styles, like street, ethnic, or glam, are an exception, most traditional French people opt for subtlety and well-made, timeless pieces or fashionable cuts in more neutral colors (black, denim, etc.). That said, the French do admire people with a unique sense of style that works, even if they might not choose to copy said style.

According to a recent survey, French people’s favorite color is blue. You might think this has something to do with bleu, blanc,, rouge, or Les Bleus, but in fact, blue is a favorite color throughout the world. So it seems that when it comes to colors, the French don’t usually go crazy…and they don’t constantly voir la vie en rose!

Speaking of which, let’s end with the most famous color-related song in French, Edith Piaf’s magnificent La Vie en Rose, which every article about French colors should include!


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About Alysa Salzberg

Alysa Salzberg is an American writer, worrier, teacher, and cookie enthusiast who has lived in Paris, France, for more than a decade. She has taught English and French for more than ten years, most notably as an assistante de langue vivante for L'Education Nationale.

She recently published her first novel, Hearts at Dawn, a "Beauty and the Beast" retelling that takes place during the 1870 Siege of Paris.

You can read about her adventures here, or feel free to stop by her website.