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TOR A2 Reading WS 4 Plus
TOR A2 Reading WS 4 Plus
1l 2l 3c
2 Complete the idioms with the colours. You need to use one colour word twice.
3 Read the text and check whether your answers to Exercise 2 are correct.
Colours in language
How many colours are there in languages. Maroon is a kind of dark Black or grey days are bad in a lot
the world? There are so many that red in English, taken from the French of languages, but people who see
we can’t count them. How many marron – the word for chestnut. things in pink, or ‘through rose-
colours can we name? That depends Do we see things differently if our coloured glasses’, don’t have grey
on what language we speak. language has more or fewer words days. They are cheerful and see
English has 11 basic colour words: for colours? Probably not. But only the good things, which is nice
black, white, red, green, yellow, we don’t always have the same but may not always help them in
blue, pink, grey, brown, orange and feelings about a colour. real life.
purple. If we want to describe a Blue is a ‘cold’ colour and in many We also agree in many languages
colour more exactly, we often use languages, there is a phrase like that people without much
‘light’ or ‘dark’, for example light the English ‘blue with cold’. Red is experience are green, but French
blue. However, in Russian, light blue ‘warm’, so we sometimes describe speakers talk about blue flowers
and dark blue are different colours feelings of anger using the colour to describe people with little
with completely different names. red. ‘She saw red’ means she got experience, and in Germany they
Of course, we describe colours angry in English, and there are say such a person has blue eyes.
with other words, too. We might similar phrases in many languages. Not all feelings have a colour, of
say something is lilac, for example, That isn’t hard to explain: an angry course. What colour is envy? In
but this is the name of a plant. Or person might get a red face, and fire English, we go ‘green with envy’,
we may say something is coffee- can be red. But in Germany they can but in Germany they say ‘I’m
coloured or lime green, etc. We also ‘go green and blue with anger’, yellow with envy.’ What about your
also borrow words from other and Dutch speakers ‘go purple’. language? Does envy have a colour?
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.
5 Think of idioms using colours in your language. How many of them are about feelings? Do the
same phrases exist in other languages?
Answers
5 Exercise 5
1 lime Ask students to work in groups of about four.
2 lilac If you have a mixed-language class, make sure
3 chestnut there are speakers from different languages
in each group. Ask each group to write down
2 Exercise 2 as many idiomatic phrases with colour as
Let students read through the four sentences they can, translated into English. They should
and ask you about any words they don’t especially try to find ones relating to feelings.
know. Envy and experience will probably be Give them time to discuss the phrases and
new. Then ask them to fill in the colour words the differences between them in different
in pairs. If they don’t know, they should languages. Then round up the discussion
decide what they think sounds best. Don’t with the whole group. If you have a range of
give them the answers yet. language backgrounds in the class, you can
make it a competition: whose native language
3 Exercise 3 is the most ‘colourful’?
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