Where to begin with fashion?
As companies can produce more and more colours with new machinery, so can advertising come up with new vocabulary. In everyday conversation people still use the old ‘red’ and ‘blue’, but increasingly they use different descriptors for their new environment. Lots of those new words come from English, but many come from French or Italian. Mind you, look around you and where do you still see colours that are pure whatever?
This idea is nothing unique to Japanese. The English also use colours that are not pure whatever; they use turquoise (from Turkish) and aquamarine (from sea water) and cobalt (from some nasty mineral; you’d die if you touched it) and suede (from Swedish), although the last one is leather and that too can now be dyed in many colours.
COLOUR or COLOR
Colour is an extremely important part of our lives. It helps us to tell the difference. It makes life more beautiful. It gives us a sense of emotional warmth. Children learn at an early stage about colours and how they are put together.
This simple cartoon-like picture beautifully demonstrates how different colours make another one. This picture in a beautiful way opens up the child’s mind to introducing different cultural and ethnic differences too.
A teenager’s delight!
In Japan too there are a million colours to choose from. As new colours are created, new names come about and in Japanese they usually mean “katakana colours”, though not always.
Where once in Takasaki all daruma were red, they now have almost all colours of the rainbow.
On the computer one can set any image to almost any colour one wishes. Paints are created and identified by computer. Shades are pure and standard.
The human touch of the potter is now merely a push on a button.
Welcome katakana!
New flower colours are bred.
Your cupboards can have a make-over.
Turquoise from Turkey. Mustard from France. Grey from America. Blue from the navy. Pink from Barbie-land.
Why stop at one colour!
modified Wikipedia pictures
In Japanese you place the colour adjective in front of the noun. As you can see from the following chart, there are two groups. Half take の and half don’t.
Yours for the asking:
That was a beautiful and colourful experience!
Japanese Language and Culture
Lami Japan 
