Today's words · 🎨 Colours & shapes
Paint the town: 10 German words for colours and shapes
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Once you know the colour words, German streets suddenly look a lot clearer.
Walk down any German street and you'll spot yellow postboxes, a little green man at the traffic lights and a row of colourful bins outside every house. But when a friend says ‘put it in the blue one’, was that blau or gelb?
Today's ten words are basic colours and shapes. With them you can describe things, ask for another colour in a clothes shop and sort your rubbish without a second thought. 🎨
📋 The ten words at a glance
🧠 Words, examples and memory tricks
die Farbe
[FAR-buh]colour; paint(Pl. die Farben)
📌 Welche Farbe magst du am liebsten?
→ What's your favourite colour?
💡 Imagine colour spreading far across the page — Farbe 🎨
Bonus Wall paint is Farbe too · colourful = bunt
rot
[ROHT]red(rot – röter – am rötesten)
📌 Die Ampel ist rot.
→ The traffic light is red.
💡 Red wine is Rotwein — remember it by the glass 🍷
Bonus rot werden = to blush
blau
[BLOW]blue📌 Der Himmel ist blau.
→ The sky is blue.
💡 Basically blue, said with a German ‘ow’ 💙
Bonus Colloquial: blau sein = to be drunk
gelb
[GELP]yellow📌 Die Post in Deutschland ist gelb.
→ The post office in Germany is yellow.
💡 Yellow and gelb are relatives, and German postboxes are gelb 📯
Bonus Add hell- (light) or dunkel- (dark): hellgelb, dunkelblau
grün
[GRUEN]green📌 Die Ampel ist grün, wir können gehen.
→ The light is green, we can go.
💡 Green with an umlaut sprinkled on top 🌿
Bonus noch grün hinter den Ohren sein = to be still wet behind the ears
schwarz
[SHVARTS]black📌 Ich trinke den Kaffee schwarz.
→ I drink my coffee black.
💡 Kaffee schwarz = black coffee, no milk ☕
Bonus schwarzfahren = to ride without a ticket
weiß
[VICE]white📌 Im Winter ist alles weiß.
→ In winter everything is white.
💡 A snowy winter is all weiß ❄️
Bonus white wine = der Weißwein
⚠ Same spelling as ich weiß (I know)!
die Form
[FORM]shape, form; format; (physical) condition(Pl. die Formen)
📌 Der Kuchen hat die Form eines Herzens.
→ The cake is in the shape of a heart.
💡 Just like form 🔷 Shape, format or fitness — it's all Form.
Bonus in Form sein = to be in good shape
der Kreis
[KRICE]circle; group, circle (of people); district(Pl. die Kreise)
📌 Die Kinder sitzen im Kreis.
→ The children are sitting in a circle.
💡 Draw a circle in the air as you say ‘KRICE’ ⭕
Bonus der Freundeskreis = circle of friends · a rural district is also a Kreis.
rund
[ROONT]round; around, about📌 Der Tisch ist rund.
→ The table is round.
💡 Same root as round 🟠 Nice and rund!
Bonus rund um die Uhr = around the clock · also ‘about’: rund 100 Leute
🇩🇪 A spoonful of German culture
In Germany, colours really matter when you take out the rubbish. It varies a bit from place to place, but usually the yellow bin or yellow bag (Gelber Sack) is for packaging, blue is for paper, brown is for food waste and black or grey is for everything else.
German post offices and postboxes are yellow, so they're easy to spot from a distance. You'll often see yellow post vans driving around too.
In Berlin and other cities in the former East, look out for the little traffic-light man with a hat (Ampelmännchen). He's a popular souvenir too. 🚦
✅ Quick quiz
Q. At a crossing, your friend says ‘We can go now!’. What are the lights showing?
- ① Die Ampel ist rot.
- ② Die Ampel ist gelb.
- ③ Die Ampel ist grün.
Show the answer
③ Die Ampel ist grün.
grün means green — that's when you can cross.
Pick five things around you today and say their colours in German, like ‘Das ist rot!’. It's fun on a walk too! 🌈
🔜 Tomorrow's topic: 🌌 Sky & space