Spanish Colors: Los Colores
Every basic Spanish color word with its English translation, plus how colors change with gender agreement, the one grammar rule that trips up beginners.
Colors are almost always one of the first vocabulary sets anyone learns in Spanish, and for good reason: they show up everywhere, from describing clothes to picking a paint color to talking about a pet.
The List
- rojo: red
- azul: blue
- amarillo: yellow
- verde: green
- naranja: orange
- morado: purple
- rosado: pink
- negro: black
- blanco: white
- gris: gray
- marrón: brown
- dorado: gold
- plateado: silver
The One Rule Worth Knowing
Most Spanish color words change their ending to match the gender of the noun they describe, the same way adjectives generally do in Spanish. Colors ending in -o become -a for feminine nouns: el carro rojo (the red car) but la casa roja (the red house). Colors that already end in a consonant or -e, like azul or verde, usually don’t change: el cielo azul (the blue sky), la hoja verde (the green leaf).
Note that naranja (orange) is the exception a lot of learners trip on: since it comes from the fruit name, it typically doesn’t change form at all regardless of gender.
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