Any Japanese speakers out there?

[pianochick93]

Hello, I am after help.

What is the Japanese word for the colour gold, and is it an 'i' or a 'na' adjective.

I am thinking that the work is 'kiniro' or just 'kin'
I am unsure whether the first one would be am i or a na adjective though.

I am trying to say Gold, high heeled shoes. My Japanese teacher told me to just say high shoes, but we didn't get as far as the gold bit.

So far my sentence reads 'kutsu ga kinirokute takai desu. (I adjective form)

Or
kutsu ga kiniro de takai desu. (Na adjective form)

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.

[prometheus]

Ok, I am not totally sure about. But this is what I think.



It's neither. I will keep to romanji since you did too.

'Akai' is red of course. It's an adjective. But 'aka' is red as a noun.

So 'aka no kutsu'. Or of course 'akai kutsu'.

Akai is an i-adjective of course. So 'Kutsu ga akakute takai desu'.

But 'kin' is not an adjective. It's a noun meaning 'gold'. But you can turn it into a colour. Then it's 'kin-iro'. But it stays a noun. Just like 'midori-iro'. Those ways of talking about colour are never adjectives. It may be confusing since there is 'kiiro' as a noun and 'kiiroi' as an i-adjective of that noun. But there is no 'kiniroi' or midoriiroi'. No adjective versions for those colours.

So then it will become 'Kutsu ga kiniro to takai desu.'

I think. Not so sure about the last part. Obviously if you say 'takai kiniro' then takai acts as an adjective of 'kin'. Maybe they actually do use 'takakute kiniro'. But as far as I know it is only used to link two adjectives and then it adds 'and'. So why not just an and-particle? But 'kinirokute', should not be possible. akakute, sure. But that's an adjective. 'Kiniro' isn't.

Now language is not logical. But this seems most logical to me based on the grammar rules I do know.

[ksnmohan]

Hi pianochick93,

The following colour words are NOUNS and must be followed with no when used as Adjectives:

chairo no    brown
giniro no     silver
haiiro no     gray
kiiro no       yellow
kiniro no     gold

midoriiro no   green
murasaki no   purple
nezumiiro no  gray
orenji no        orange

 

[pianochick93]

Thanks a lot guys.

Promethus, I see your locig in that, but my teacher wants us to use the 'kute' and the 'de' to join adjectives.
Perhaps I should change it to takakute, kiniro desu.

knsmohan: That also make sense. I will thing about this a little more, and see if I can put everything together into a logical sentence.

[prometheus]

Well, if you need to use 'kute' or 'de' then you need to link adjectives. So you need to use two adjectives. That means you can't use those colour nouns

[i heart xenakis]

Ching

[ksnmohan]

While pianochick93 is describing the shoes, in English she can use "gold shoes" or "golden shoes". The first has the usage of "gold" as a noun and in the second "golden" as the adjective. As we all know, English has its own grammar and rules - it may not be so precise, e.g. as German.

If in Japanese the "noun" + "adjective" use for any description is allowed, "gold" can appear as a noun. Use of 2 or even more Adjectives  is allowed in all languages like "a young, powerful Lioness" or "the big, multicoloured, fragrant flower".

So pianochick93 (and her Japanese language teacher!) have to decide how to frame the sentence.     

[pianochick93]

Ok. We decided to use katakana for the shoes, and so ended up saying hai-heeru wa kiniro desu.

Nice and easy, no joined of adjectives (or nouns) required.