Colours in German

Colours are adjectives: after sein they stay as they are (Das Auto ist rot), before a noun they take the usual endings (ein rotes Auto). Rosa, lila and orange traditionally take no ending at all — ein rosa Kleid — though you will hear lilanes in speech. Put hell- or dunkel- in front for light and dark shades: hellblau, dunkelgrün. Of these 20 words, 4 are among the 5,000 most common; the other 16 are basic words, marked with a dash.