What is the best way to remember "color" words in Korean?

Question

Students often have trouble remembering color words in Korean, given how numerous the color words are and how abstract the concept is in general. This is an issue in all languages, but in Korean, how would one go about memorizing them in an effective way?

Answer 1

Korea's traditional 5 colors are - White, Black, Red, Yellow and Blue

Korean adjectives are considered as "descriptive" verbs. They have the dictionary form and conjugate depends on where you want to use, weather to modify a noun or to use as predicate.

Red 빨갛다[ppahl gah tah] verb - 빨강noun - 빨간 adjective to modify a noun

* if you already know 빨리빨리 (Quickly Quickly), you can relate that to remember the name of this "passionate" color.

Yellow 노랗다 [noh rah tah] - 노랑 - 노란

* imagine a yellow traffic sign. it means "no" more crossing the intersection.

White 하얗다 [hah-yah-tah] - 하양 - 하얀

* you can say "white" with or without 'h' sound. But let's pretend it's with 'h'.

Then Korean 하양 and English "white" both starts with 'h' sound

Black 까맣다 [kkah-mah-tah] - 까망 - 까만

* imagine a black crow. Crows "caw". The sound is not 100% match but it should give you a hint to remember the word.

Blue 파랗다 [pah-rah-tah] - 파랑 - 파란

* In old days, it said not only "blue" but also "green". Even though we now use this more for "blue" only, sometimes still use to describe the green meadow or forests.

* imagine a big green golf course and think of the term "par"

Answer 2

For the most basic color, you can use the rainbow color common to everyone.

빨간색(빨강) Red

주황색(주황) Orange

노란색(노랑) Yellow

초록색(초록) Green

파란색(파랑) Blue

남색(남) Indigo

보라색(보라) Purple

You just need to take out the first letter from this word and memorize it as '빨주노초파남보'.

You can also add 흰색(white), 검정색(black), 회색(grey) by default.

In Korea, traditionally, we have dyed with natural materials to make hanbok, and the color varies depending on the number of times of dyeing.

The seasoning in the food is also adjusted by looking at the color.

The characteristic of Korean is that the emotional state can also be expressed in color.

The most common example is yellow.

There are various expressions, such as 노란색 - 노랑- 노랭이 - 노랗다 - 샛노랗다 - 노르스름하다 - 누렁이 - 누렇다 - 누리끼리하다 and more. This is a variety of expressions due to the difference in brightness and saturation, and you must select and use appropriate words according to the object you want to express.

That's why many foreigners think that Korean alphabet is easy to learn, but Korean language is difficult to learn.

Words that express colors also change shape depending on the position of the sentence, so it is recommended to learn and learn various expressions as sentences as possible.

Answer 3

Just like in any language, I think associating it with an object that is invariably that color is a great trick. So, for example, apples are almost always red, so if you keep the phrase "빨간 사과" in your head whenever trying to think of the word red, and thus the association will be brought from the abstract concept of red, to the physical concept of an apple. We could do the same thing for any color, for instance, 초록은 개구리 for the "green frog." This way, we can have an array of physical objects to associate with instead of abstract ideas.