Page 100 - Easy Japanese - Learn to Speak Japanese Quickly! (TUTTLE)

banana バナナ banana

Colors
aka/akai 赤 red

ao/aoi 青 blue

ki’iro/ki’iroi 黄色 yellow
shiro/shiroi 白 white

kuro/kuroi 黒 black
cha’iro/cha’iroi 茶色 brown

midori 緑 green
murasaki 紫 purple

hai’iro 灰色 gray
kon’iro 紺色 navy, indigo

orenji オレンジ orange
pinku ピンク pink

nani iro 何色 what color

GRAMMAR NOTE Na-Nouns
The words kirei “beautiful” and dentō-teki “traditional” belong to a smaller

group of nouns that are called na-nouns. They have adjective-like meanings and
form of nouns. They do not have adjective endings such as -katta- and -ku. As
nouns, their negative forms end in -ja nai desu. When modifying another noun,
they take na instead of no, unlike regular nouns.
kirei na Nihongo “beautiful Japanese”
dentō-teki na okashi “traditional sweets”

To distinguish them from regular nouns, they are marked with na added in the

dictionaries in this book. Note that all na-nouns are intangible, but not all
intangibles are na nouns.

GRAMMAR NOTE Noun Phrases and the Pronoun no = “One”

We have so far discussed four ways of extending a noun into a longer noun
phrase as follows.

1. Noun no Noun watashi no my cellphone