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While studying Japanese I've met some problems with distinguishing some vocabulary.

For example we have:

  • 赤{あか} = Red (color)
  • 赤{あか}い = Red (adjective)

But what about 赤色{あかいろ}? Is there a difference between that and 赤{あか}?

Is the former just there in order to study the Kanji, or are there differences in usage (and maybe "acception") between the two?

I suspect it's the second, but it would be nice to have a good explanation about it.

Alenanno
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  • Both 赤 and 赤色 are nouns whose basic meanings are the same, but they are not always interchangeable because of the differences in derived meanings and usages. I hope that some people can explain the difference clearly. – Tsuyoshi Ito Oct 09 '11 at 11:18
  • Just out of curiosity, why don't you explain those differences in meaning and usages? You're a native speaker, no? :D – Alenanno Oct 09 '11 at 11:20
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    Yes, I am a native speaker. Native speakers tend to be able to tell correct/natural expressions from incorrect/unnatural expressions, but that does not mean that they can explain why. – Tsuyoshi Ito Oct 09 '11 at 11:24
  • Yes, it's not always true, but well, look at your answers and rep. You surely don't belong to that category. :) Anyway, I was just wondering. I'll be waiting :D – Alenanno Oct 09 '11 at 11:27
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    I guess that you know this, but just in case: if you think that high-rep users have no trouble answering questions, then sorry but you are wrong. I often go through a lot of trouble writing an answer, and I cannot do that every time. – Tsuyoshi Ito Oct 09 '11 at 11:35
  • No, I don't think that. But I think that users with such a nice series of given answers can't really be here writing wrong things, regardless if you take some time or not writing them. :) – Alenanno Oct 09 '11 at 11:41
  • Well, thanks, but you are overestimating me. – Tsuyoshi Ito Oct 09 '11 at 11:42
  • @TsuyoshiIto I asked two native speakers and they both told me there is no difference at all. I was going to post it, but your first comment made me re-think about it. Since you said you knew about this, can you please give me your thoughts on the matter? – Alenanno Oct 12 '11 at 15:43
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    One example that the two words are not interchangeable is 赤 can refer to a political tendency while 赤色 does not have this usage. I doubt that this is the only difference, though I cannot think of other differences right now. – Tsuyoshi Ito Oct 12 '11 at 19:45
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    @TsuyoshiIto 赤色 does have the political usage as in 赤色テロル. However, 赤 and 赤色 are not usually interchagable in compounds. –  Oct 15 '11 at 02:15
  • @sawa: Thank you for the example! I could not come up with an example like that. – Tsuyoshi Ito Oct 15 '11 at 02:25
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    Is it comparable to the difference in English between say "red" and "red colour", both of which are idiomatic English that would be used in different circumstances? – hippietrail Oct 18 '11 at 15:34

2 Answers2

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  1. I think the same difference applies in English i.e. "red" versus "red colour".

    "red colour" forces you to perceive it as a colour, while "red" has no such limitation.

    This means "red" can be used symbolically to represent other things. (Much like how "white" is to "purity", and "green" is to "environment" etc.)

    This means 赤{あか} and 赤{あか}い can be used symbolically, while 赤{あか}色{いろ} forces you to perceive a colour (less likely to be perceived symbolically).

  2. From a grammar standpoint,

    • 赤{あか}月{つき}(red moon) is a noun on its own.

    • 赤{あか}い月{つき} is the noun 月{つき} modified by the adjective 赤{あか}い.

    • 赤色{あかいろ}の月{つき} is the noun 月{つき} modified by the noun 赤色{あかいろ} via the genitive case1 particle `の

    Semantically I see no difference.

  3. This is my conjecture: Using "red" means that the object is being inherently red or has "red" as an intrinsic quality; and "red colour" implying that the object is not inherently red or does not have "red" as an intrinsic quality.

    EDIT: There are compound nouns that are of the form 赤～ such as:

    赤{あか}狼{おおかみ} - Red wolf

    赤{あか}蕪{かぶ} - Red turnip

    赤{あか}狩{が}り - Communist hunting, red-baiting (Harassment or persecution (of someone) on account of known or suspected communist sympathies.)

    This leads me to conjecture that things that are inherently red in colour or are closely associated with the colour red or the concept of "red" (see point 1.) can have compound nouns that are formed by 赤+[noun] (First bullet of point 2.) And things that are not take on the 赤い+[noun] structure (Second bullet of point 2.).

    Also consider why "Red carpet" takes on the 赤い+[noun] construction: 赤いじゅうたん even though it feels like a complete noun on its own. Carpets do not have to be inherently red, the colour is incidental.

    So this leads me to conclude that if the colour (or its related symbolic concept) can be incidental, 赤い+[noun] is used. If it is not incidental then it is quite likely that 赤+[noun] will be an acceptable word.

1: Genitive Case: It is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun. A genitive construction involves two nouns - the head (modified) noun and the modifier noun. The modifier noun modifies the head noun by expressing some property of it.

Flaw
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  • Could you please include furigana? – Alenanno Oct 14 '11 at 17:28
  • @DaveMG I don't think I can put it any more succintly without the use of the term. The sentence would still make sense if I just said "the particle の" and left out the words "genitive case". The use of the term does not serve to confuse, it describes the role of の specifically. I will edit to make my answer user-friendlier in a moment. – Flaw Oct 15 '11 at 09:03
  • @DaveMG The genitive case (it's a grammatical case, like nominative, dative, etc.) usually indicates the "belonging" to someone (also other things, depending on the language); in English, for example, "Ivan's car", where <'s> indicates the belonging, and Ivan is in the genitive case. In Russian it's more explicit: the same sentence would be "Машина Ивана", where the original "Иван" (Ivan) turns into the genitive case "Ивана" (Ivan-a). I don't know if I explained it well. :D – Alenanno Oct 15 '11 at 09:38
  • @DaveMG I understand. But since I could provide an explanation on that, I did (although I know it wasn't the info you actually wanted to know). :) I'm not sure I could give a good explanation on Japanese yet. – Alenanno Oct 15 '11 at 14:08
  • @DaveMG point 2. cannot be explained "about the Japanese". This is because point 2. was intended to be discussed from the perspective of "difference in grammatical construction". I guess if it was "about the Japanese" then I've addressed that point by saying that they're semantically equivalent. – Flaw Oct 15 '11 at 15:11
  • @DaveMG Acknowledged. I'm trying to analyse point 1. further and hopefully include examples so that it will be more "about the Japanese" rather than just separating them by grammatical constructs. I have some ideas but just when it seems to be consistent with words/phrases that I find, suddenly a few more appear that break the logic. – Flaw Oct 16 '11 at 15:07
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赤　and 赤色　are both the same. When you start using the first, then other color will be without 色, in conversation with your friends. If you use the second one, then your friend will or may use 色, with other color as well.

But it does not matter in general conversation. 　

shin
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