A2 Reading worksheet 4 (plus)

Colours in the world, colours in language

1 Can you name these things? What colour are they?

1l 2l 3c

2 Complete the idioms with the colours. You need to use one colour word twice.

blue green red

1 Celia is very angry. She’s seeing .

2 I’ve had a good swim but the sea is freezing. I’m with cold.
3 What a great new car Robert has! I’m with envy.
4 Our new colleague has no experience. He’s very but he’ll learn fast.

3 Read the text and check whether your answers to Exercise 2 are correct.

Colours in language

How many colours are there in
the world? There are so many that
we can’t count them. How many
colours can we name? That depends
on what language we speak.
English has 11 basic colour words:
black, white, red, green, yellow,
blue, pink, grey, brown, orange and
purple. If we want to describe a
colour more exactly, we often use
‘light’ or ‘dark’, for example light
blue. However, in Russian, light blue
and dark blue are different colours
with completely different names.
Of course, we describe colours
with other words, too. We might
say something is lilac, for example,
but this is the name of a plant. Or
we may say something is coffee-
coloured or lime green, etc. We
also borrow words from other
languages. Maroon is a kind of dark
red in English, taken from the French
marron – the word for chestnut.
Do we see things differently if our
language has more or fewer words
for colours? Probably not. But
we don’t always have the same
feelings about a colour.
Blue is a ‘cold’ colour and in many
languages, there is a phrase like
the English ‘blue with cold’. Red is
‘warm’, so we sometimes describe
feelings of anger using the colour
red. ‘She saw red’ means she got
angry in English, and there are
similar phrases in many languages.
That isn’t hard to explain: an angry
person might get a red face, and fire
can be red. But in Germany they can
also ‘go green and blue with anger’,
and Dutch speakers ‘go purple’.
Black or grey days are bad in a lot
of languages, but people who see
things in pink, or ‘through rose-
coloured glasses’, don’t have grey
days. They are cheerful and see
only the good things, which is nice
but may not always help them in
real life.
We also agree in many languages
that people without much
experience are green, but French
speakers talk about blue flowers
to describe people with little
experience, and in Germany they
say such a person has blue eyes.
Not all feelings have a colour, of
course. What colour is envy? In
English, we go ‘green with envy’,
but in Germany they say ‘I’m
yellow with envy.’ What about your
language? Does envy have a colour?

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A2 Reading worksheet 4 (plus)
Colours in the world, colours in language
4 Are the sentences true or false? Correct the false sentences.

Tip
Don’t think an option is true just because you see the same words in the text. A sentence can
be true but use different words than in the text.

1 Different languages have different numbers of words for colours.

2 English has more words to describe blue than Russian.
3 Maroon is a word that comes from the French language.
4 There are phrases in many languages that use red to describe anger.
5 It’s always good to see things ‘through rose-coloured glasses’.
6 Emotions are described using the same colours in German and English.

5 Think of idioms using colours in your language. How many of them are about feelings? Do the
same phrases exist in other languages?

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A2 Reading worksheet 4 (plus)
Teacher’s notes
This worksheet pushes students towards B1 by asking
them to read a text of around 380 words – about 130
words longer than the maximum they will encounter
at A2. It introduces B1 vocabulary, most of which is
pre-taught in the first two exercises. Some words will
need to be deduced from the context but are not key to
completing the tasks. There is a range of higher-level
structures. Modal verbs are often used. Students need to
read for specific information, detailed comprehension
and inference – skills needed for Parts 2 and 3 of the B1/
Preliminary Reading test.
1 Exercise 1
Hand out the worksheet and ask the students
to look at the pictures. Ask if anyone can
name the things. The words are probably all
new and you will need to teach them. Then
ask what colour the things are. You could also
brainstorm all the words students know for
colours, to activate language and ideas before
the reading exercise.
Answers
1 lime
2 lilac
3 chestnut
2 Exercise 2
Let students read through the four sentences
and ask you about any words they don’t
know. Envy and experience will probably be
new. Then ask them to fill in the colour words
in pairs. If they don’t know, they should
decide what they think sounds best. Don’t
give them the answers yet.
3 Exercise 3
Ask students to scan the text and find the
idioms from Exercise 2. They can then check
whether their answers were correct. Let them
compare answers with a partner and then
check with the whole class.
Answers
1 red
2 blue
3 green
4 green
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4 Exercise 4
Ask students to read through the six
sentences. Then give them time to read
the text more slowly, decide whether the
sentences are true or false, and correct the
false sentences with a partner. The exact
wording of the corrections is not important.
Check the answers with the whole class.
Answers
1 true
2 false (Russian has different words for light blue
and dark blue.)
3 true
4 true
5 false (You might have problems in real life if
you see only the good things.)
6 false (For example, German speakers describe
envy with ‘yellow’ and go ‘green and blue’ with
anger, which is not the same in English.)
5 Exercise 5
Ask students to work in groups of about four.
If you have a mixed-language class, make sure
there are speakers from different languages
in each group. Ask each group to write down
as many idiomatic phrases with colour as
they can, translated into English. They should
especially try to find ones relating to feelings.
Give them time to discuss the phrases and
the differences between them in different
languages. Then round up the discussion
with the whole group. If you have a range of
language backgrounds in the class, you can
make it a competition: whose native language
is the most ‘colourful’?
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