Colours and Shapes
Learn 20 easy A1 English colours and shapes - red, grey, purple, circle, square, triangle - with examples, a short story and a quiz.
Colours look like the easiest words in English, and they are – until you try to put one in a sentence. Many languages put the colour after the thing; English puts it before. This lesson gives you eleven colours, six shapes and the three words that hold them together, and then shows you exactly where they go. After that, come with me to an airport in Istanbul, where my suitcase did not arrive.
20 words to learn
The 20 words
/ˈkʌlə(r)/
Red, blue, green and so on. Americans write color.
What colour is your car?
/red/
The colour of blood and tomatoes.
She was wearing a red dress.
/bluː/
The colour of the sky and the sea.
He has blue eyes.
/ɡriːn/
The colour of grass and leaves.
The traffic light is green – go.
/ˈjeləʊ/
The colour of the sun and lemons.
A yellow taxi stopped in front of us.
/blæk/
The darkest colour, like the night.
I always wear black shoes to work.
/waɪt/
The colour of snow and milk.
He put on a clean white shirt.
/braʊn/
The colour of wood, earth and coffee.
She has long brown hair.
/ɡreɪ/
Between black and white, like a rainy sky. Americans write gray.
My grandfather has grey hair.
/pɪŋk/
Light red, like many flowers.
The baby has a small pink blanket.
/ˈpɜːpl/
Between red and blue, like an aubergine.
I wrote it in purple pen.
/ˈɒrɪndʒ/
The colour of carrots. It is a colour and a fruit.
The evening sky was orange.
/ʃeɪp/
The form of something: round, square and so on.
What shape is the table?
/ˈsɜːkl/
A perfectly round shape, like the sun.
The children sat in a circle.
/skweə(r)/
A shape with four equal sides.
Cut the bread into squares.
/ˈtraɪæŋɡl/
A shape with three sides.
A slice of watermelon is a triangle.
/stɑː(r)/
The shape with five points, and the light in the night sky.
She put a gold star on my homework.
/raʊnd/
In the shape of a circle or a ball.
We eat at a big round table.
/dɑːk/
With little light, or a strong deep colour.
He wore a dark blue jacket.
/laɪt/
With a lot of light, or a soft pale colour.
I prefer light green for the kitchen.
Now read the story
Story · all 20 words
Describe Your Suitcase
At the airport in Istanbul my suitcase did not arrive. A woman at the desk gave me a long form and a pen and started asking questions. “Colour? Shape? Any marks on it?” And standing there I understood something strange: I had carried that suitcase for six years and I had never really looked at it.
I closed my eyes and tried to see it. It is dark blue, I said – or perhaps black. It is definitely not red and definitely not orange. It has four wheels and a long handle, and the handle is grey.
“And on it? Is there anything on it?” Then I remembered, all at once. My little sister covered it in stickers the night before I left: a yellow star just under the handle, a green circle in the middle, and a small pink triangle in the corner that she told me very seriously was a mountain.
“Anything else?” the woman asked, still writing. There is a white label with my name on it in purple pen. There is a piece of brown leather tied to the handle from my father’s old bag. And the bottom is not round like the new suitcases – it is completely square, which is exactly why it falls over every time you stop walking.
She read the whole list back to me and smiled. “Now I can find it,” she said. Two days later a man knocked on my hotel door with the suitcase in his hand. I opened it in the middle of the room, and the first thing I saw was the light blue shirt my mother had folded on the top. Everything was there.
This is the most important line in the lesson. In many languages the colour comes after the noun. In English it comes before it:
✓ a red car ✗ a car red
✓ the white shirt ✗ the shirt white
And the colour never becomes plural: two blue cars, not two blues cars. English adjectives never change – not for plural, not for men or women.
Making a colour stronger or softer: put dark or light in front of it – dark green, light brown, dark grey, light pink.
British and American spelling: colour / color, and grey / gray. Both are correct. Our lessons use British spelling, so choose that one and stay with it.
Colours: red, blue, green, yellow, black, white, brown, grey, pink, purple, orange.
Shapes: circle, square, triangle, star, round.
The helpers: colour, shape, dark, light.
Two questions to practise: What colour is it? and What shape is it? Look around the room and answer both about five different things – and remember to put the colour before the noun every time.
Now practise with the questions below.
Check your understanding
Answer the questions below. You will see instantly if you are right.
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