Transcripts
1. Introduction: Bonjour à tous et bienvenue! I'm Marie Le Moal a printmaker
and teacher based into the South of france. I'm passionate about block printing, its process
and my native language. This class is the first part of a series which
purpose is to make learning French easy and inspiring by diving
into creative topics. In this class, we're going
to talk about naming warm, cold and
neutral colours Then we'll dive into
several techniques too add accuracy
to those names. After the first
couple of lessons, you will be able to name colours, such as gris loup, wolf gray, jaune soleil, sun yellow, bleu, marine, navy blue. Each lesson emphasizes on pronunciation and I'll give you tips to get it right. Implementation is
key, so we will complete several exercises to
practice your lessons. I also highly encourage you to repeat out loud
the wards you'll learn because it will not only improve your pronunciation, but also boost
your confidence to use these words in a
real conversation. For instance. The purpose of the
class is to be able to describe
with confidence, the colour palette a piece of artwork uses, we will also go
through some vocabulary, which is very useful, related to colours and
colour palettes as well. there is sven conjugation reminder, but I promise with
interesting verbs only. To implement everything we've
learned will end class by translating sentences
describing color palettes. there's also a workbook you can
download to follow along. You can use it to keep
the main takeaways handy and to fill
in the exercises. By the end of this class, you will have leveled up
your French and you will feel confident to talk about
your signature palette. Are you ready? Let's get started! Etes-vous prêts? On commence!
2. Class Description: Let's have a look at
how the class is organized. First, we're going to
focus on how name kudos. To do so first, we'll talk about the
basics which are really the name of the
colours, green, red, vert, rouge And so on. Once we've focused
on warm colours, cold colors as well as neutral colours we'll then move on to add accuracy to our shades
and tones descriptions. To do so, we'll see how to easily add adjectives
so that you can better describe which colour you
would like to talk about. We're going to see the most
common adjectives which are useful to describe colours, as well as how to form or to create adjectives,
from a colour name. By then, you'll have already
a very good understanding about how to name a colour
or how to describe a colour palette. But of course, we'll
go beyond that and get creative to talk
about other colours. We'll look at what are the different sources
of inspiration. You can draw from to name
accurately some colours. Then the second
part I'd like us to implement with naming
our favorite colours. I'll show you three of my
favorite colours and then it would be your turn to
name your favorites. In the third part, we're going to
focus here on vocabulary that is useful if you want to
describe which colours are used, what the colour palette is, whether you would like to
talk about your own artwork. or if you refer to
someone else's. Because there'll be
some verbs included, we'll focus a little bit
on how to conjugate them. In the fourth part of the class we will talk
about colour palettes which adjectives are
useful to describe them. And we will implement by
naming a couple of them. Last but not least, we will focus on translation
from English into French of three different
sentences that are related to colours so that you can implement everything you've actually learnt in the class. Don't forget to download the
workbook to follow along. I think it's very valuable
and very helpful to write down the
answers and the exercises while you're
following the class. You can actually download it by clicking on the link that is just below is the project
and resources section.
3. Naming Colours: Let's get started
and focus first on one warm colours, les couleurs chaudes. Here, don't forget
that in French, the adjective "chaudes" goes
after the noun colours. Here we've got the first one, rouge Then this one is called rose , orange, et jaune If you want some extra
practice, repeat after me. Let's now have a look at
cold , les couleurs froides. Once again, here the "s" is muted, so you won't hear it. First, We've got "vert", the t here is muted
and you're not going to hear it That shade which is a mix between green and blue is referred
to as turquoise. We've got bleu, et violet Same thing here the t is muted. Repeat after me for
extra practice. Vert, turquoise, bleu, violet Let's have a look
now at what we can call neutrals or
natural colours We've got blanc, noir, gris marron, beige which is kind of a creamy colour beige qui se rapproche d'une teinte ou d'une couleur crème crème here that is cream et taupe which often a darker shade than beigeand is
really in-between beige et marron By the way, "taupe" here is the
French"for mole"
4. Adjectives to Add Accuracy: Now that you know, most of the colour names, of course, a colour goes far beyond
just a single shade. And you will need
some different ways to describe much better a colour To go beyond just
green, blue, or whatever colour. The easiest way to describe a colour
to go beyond just the shade, for instance, vert, ou bleu, would be to add an adjective after its name to
qualify whether you 're referring to a dark or light shade
and how intense it it for instance let's say you want to talk about a colour. Here, we're going to
refer to lighter shades. To do that, the three
most common adjectives would be clair For instance, blue clair, pastel ou pâle Don't forget that there is the circumflex
accent on the a here. Blue clair Blue pastel Blue pâle On the opposite if oyu'd like
to refer to darker shades. The most common adjectives are foncé with the
acute accent here. Bleu foncé. Dark blue. Profond the D here is muted. profond, deep blue For instance. Then if you go to a very bright, saturated, vivid colour,
you could call it vif. Vif would be masculine. And if you want
to say une couleur vive Here the feminine
is actually irregular. To implement what
we've just seen, I'd like us to focus on this
example with a green shade. utilisez les adjectifs vus précédement pour décrire les couleurs ci-dessous So here you've got
the green shade here in the middle that
I've used as a reference And you've got three
lighter tones on the left and to be
darker ones on the right. I'd like you to pause
the video for a couple of minutes
while you do complete this exercise and use the six adjectives
we've seen just before, which are clair, light, pastel, pâle, foncé,
dark, profond deep et vif, bright Okay, If you're back, let's have a look at how we could actually
fill in this exercise. the lighter shade here on the left, could be referred to as pâle, with the "circonflexe" accent here. Then we've got vert pastel. vert clair, on the right of the middle shade here We could say, because
that colour is super bright, super saturated. I think we could say vert vif Then we've got vert foncé puis ensuite vert profond On the previous lesson, we've learned how to actually
had an adjective to a colour. There are actually two different ways to create an adjective
from a colour name. Let's have a look
at the first one. It's quite easy. You do add "é" so, "e" with the
acute accent here. At the end of the colour name. For instance, rose becomes
rosé, et orange becomes orangé. These adjectives are really useful whenever you want
to describe a colour, that has a slight
shade of another one. For instance, if we
think about rosé here, that's actually the famous wine, that does have a very
slight pink shade. But of course it's
not bright pink, such as that magenta here
on the left of my slide. Same thing. orangé would describe accurately something that does have a little bit
of orange within it. But clearly it's not
bright saturated orange. These two here are
quite easy to form, but you can use it with
different colors as well. For instance, we've got
bleu that becomes bleuté, with a slight
shade of blue. Gris, grisé et violet devient violacé You can repeat after
me for extra practice. rosé, orangé, bleuté, grisé, violacé Another way to actually create an adjective from a colour name is to add "âtre" the end of
the name of the colour So here, for instance, vert would become verdâtre, bleu, bleuâtre, jaune, jaunâtre. You need
to be careful though, with these "âtre" these adjectives because they do convey a
pejorative connotation. So clearly, if you are a
big fan , of that green shade, you will not refer
to as being verdâtre though if you'd like to
refer to I don't know, maybe some water that
is being stagnant and you are having seaweed
starting to develop in it That's what we could call verdâtre so these adjectives
can be useful, But don't forget
that they do convey a negative feeling with them. So far we've seen how to add an adjective to
describe a shade, whether it is light or dark for instance. We've also seen how to create
adjectives from a colour name Then let's focus on a third way to easily
name colours It is as simple as combine the name of two
colors together with a dash. On associe deux noms de couleurs avec un tiret. For instance, the green shade here is quite light and does
have some yellow in it. That's actually the tertiary colour
that we can call vert-jaune Same thing with thing with that shade that is between blue and green that we can call bleu-vert bleu-vert can also be
referred to as turquoise This technique of combining the name of two
colours with a dash, also works with the
adjectives we've mentioned in the previous slide. For instance, that
orangey yellow can be called jaune-orangé. Et ici cette couleur peut s'appeler bleu-violacé These four colours
here are actually the name of the tertiary colours on the colour wheel
5. Get Creative with Colour Names: Now it's time to get
creative to name colours. Soyons créatifs pour nommer les couleurs The key here would be to trigger the imagination
to start dreaming, and to do that, the easiest way to do so, is to add a noun that does evoke this colour And then we'll then see how to gather inspiration
from different sources. So let's focus first on
a couple of examples. We could have jaune moutarde For mustard yellow Instead of referring to
bright green, for instance, you can call it moss green that is in French vert mousse. It does work with the name
of the colour before. Or sometimes you can even
get rid of the color name. So for instance, a colour that is
called réglisse You could call it noir réglisse But just "réglisse" works
fine on its own because, well, the block here is implied. Same thing we could call a
light shade of pink. That does have a little
bit of orange in it corail Let's focus now on what are
the different sources of inspiration you could actually use to name your colours. Probably the most important one will be nature, so nature fleurs, végétaux, plantes; We've got, for instance, gris galet, don't forget, same thing here the T
is muted. Lichen. tournesol, jaune tournesol would
work just as well. Feuille d'automne, for automn leaf for instance, if you'd like to
refer to a blend with orange and
red for instance. We could think also
about, for instance, blanc neige, snow shite. Or then we could have vert sapin, pine green or even fleur de coton coton flower. If you would like to refer to
a soft white for instance. You could also draw
inspiration to name your colours from minerals. Minéraux Don't forget un minéral des minéraux The x here is muted. For instance, we would have
vert émeraude, bleu saphir, rouge rubis jaune or, I can think about also gris argent, for silver gray. Ou jaune ambre, amber yellow Animals are also a great
source of inspiration. For instance, we could have
gris tourterelle, rose crevette, bleu canard does refer to the
color of the neck of ducks that are very popular. Then we've got taupe that
we've mentioned earlier that is in-between cream and brown. Let's see if we could
find some other one. I could think about
gris loup, for wolf gray, rose flamant
for flamingo pink. or also jaune poussin Like us also to
focus on food and spices as a source
of inspiration. Once again, it could work with or without the colour name. For instance, rouge piment ou seulement piment Then we could have betterave, beetroot cacao, fleur de sel, rose bonbon If you'd like to talk about a super saturated
bright pink color. Fruits are also really useful. You could have things
like peach, pêche, apricot, abricot, cerise, cherry. One last source of inspiration that is very often used
to describe colours is everything that
would fall under the geography umbrella, la géographie For instance here, jaune indien And that would be quite close to what we could refer
to as curry For instance, that is
an obviously referring to the spice Ensuite on a lagon ou Bordeaux that
does refer to the famous city and the wine of
this dark burgundy shade. Et dune qui évoque le sable et le désert Dune that evokes desert
and sand, for instance.
6. Implementation: Name Your Favourite Colours: All right, are you ready
for implementation? Etes-vous prêts pour
mettre en pratique? Let's first have a look at three
of my favorite colours. Ici on a jaune soleil, yellow sun. J'aime beaucoup cette teinte
de bleu foncé également I also love this
dark blue shade. Et on peut l'appeler bleu marine. Navy blue. I'm a big fan of
that bright pink that I've decided to
refer to as rouge cerise, cherry pink Okay. Now it's time for you
to name your favorite colours Pick three of your
favorite colours. You can submit into the discussion
section your colors with a name if you'd like some
help or would like some feedback, I'd be more than happy
to provide it to you. Don't forget that
I'm here to help.
7. Vocabulary: Now I would like us to focus more on some vocabulary that is useful to describe not only
the colours themselves, but for instance,
a colour palette Or if you'd like to
talk about the colours, a piece of artwork, piece of design, of
clothing, a wallpaper Well, whatever that actually
uses colour is about. Let's first focus on words that are related
to tones, shades. So we've got ton, nuance That is shade. dégradé for gradient. un mélange, mix saturation, une teinte, hue harmonieux ou harmonieuse
fade ou terne which are two adjectives
that would refer to very dull or plain colours. If you'd like to
talk about what's going on on the colour wheel Then we've got cercle chromatique, le cercle chromatique une couleur primaire Bleu, jaune, rouge une couleur secondaire une couleur tertiaire. des couleurs complémentaires which are on the opposite
side of the colour wheel des couleurs complémentaires qui se situent en face l'une de l'autre sur le cercle
chromatique Here are some verbs as well that are going to be very handy, if you need to talk about colours the first four here, do belong to the first
group of verbs, that we're going to
talk about in a minute. We've got associer, évoquer There's a capital E here. But if there's no capital, don't forget the acute accent. Foncer et mélanger Then we've got two verbs that belong to
the second group. choisir, to choose et Eclaircir to lighten up, which is
the opposite of foncer Then we've got inclure, to include
et transmettre, to transmit, to bring or to convey. that belong to the third group In order for you to get
the conjugation right. Here is a quick reminder about prison tense of
first group verbs. First groups verbs are those which end with "er" In our example we're
going to conjugate mélanger je mélange, tu mélanges There's an S here,
but it's muted. il, elle ou on mélange nous mélangeons vous mélangez ils ou elles mélangent Here is another example with the word associer. J'associe
tu associes il, elle ou on associe don't forget " the liaison" with on associe on associe on associe, nous associons Same thing, you've got the liaison here nous associons vous associez, la liaison
ils ou elles associent Okay, then, we've got
the second group verbs. So these verbs end with "ir'
and then ends with "issons" When you're using
the pronoun "nous" Let's have a look. Par exemple, choisir You're not hearing
the S, tu choisis il, elle ou on choisit nous choisissons. That end tells us that choisir your belongs to the
second group, nous choisissons vous choisissez, ils ou elles choisissent Eclaircir works the same way. j'éclaircis, tu éclaircis il, elle ou on éclaircit. Once again, liaison. nous éclaircissons, vous éclaircissez, ils ou elles éclaircissent Then we've got the
third group verbs. Basically any verb that
wouldn't fall under the first or second
group category is then a third group verb. Most of them we will end with "re" but you've got
some exceptions as well. In our examples, we've
got inclure. Giant clue to include. j'inclus, tu inclus, on inclut, liaison nous incluons liaison once
again, vous incluez, ils ou elles incluent. Pay attention that here
ells incluent it ends with "ent", though It does sounds the same. j'inclus, ils incluent the spelling is is different
but it does sound the same. We've got transmettre, as
well to transmit or to convey or to bring , je transmets, tu transmets il transmet, nous transmettons, vous transmettez, ils transmettent I know that no one's big fan of conjugation and frankly neither am I. But I think it's
important to get them right because if you
get the conjugation right, It will really help
you to level up your French and people will
understand you a lot better. It can be tricky at first, But when you are able to assess with belongs to the first,
second or third group, it will get easier.
8. Colour Palettes: Now that you're
comfortable using adjectives and vocabulary
to describe colours, I thought it would be
worth taking some time having a look at useful words to describe
a color palette. Nous allons voire les mots utiles
pour décrire une palette de couleur First, if you'd like to
talk about a colour palette that evokes a era
because of its colours, whether it is vintage
classic or modern Here are some words you can
use. Rétro, for vintage, une palette rétro, une palette moderne, une palette classique We could also add intemporelle If you'd like to refer to a palette which colours
are not going out of trend for instance If you've
got a colour palette with a lot of pastel, soft tones, such as lilac, dusty rose or these
kind of shades. Some useful words
could be the délicat une palette délicate ou une palette romantique We could also use
rêveur ou une palette rêveuse If you'd like to
use the feminine. For dreamy, a dreamy color
palette, une palette rêveuse On the opposite, if you've
got a lot of greens, lot of natural colors as well. We could refer to as
being botanique for botanical, ou naturel, "el" when it's masculine. et une palette naturelle You would end the
word with "lle" une palette naturelle We could also say luxuriant For lush. If it does evoke
kind of a jungle Kodos. Then if you'd like to talk about the vibes of filling
your color palette, those convey, you could
use, for instance, apaisante, une palaette apaisante For peaceful. And the opposite would
be dynamic, dynamique We could also use, for instance, calm, which is quite
close to apaisant, et énergique Then you can also
draw inspiration to qualify your colour palettes from many different adjectives, such as mystérieux, une palette mystérieuse, let me write down the feminine, mystérieuse, une palette joyeuse, joyfull Then we could think about also, if you've got a lot
of colours involved, coloré, colorful, puissant, If you use quite a lot of
bold colours, powerful For instance, if you use a lot of tones that
refer to kids, or that kids would like, we could say on enfantin
une palette enfantine amusant, une palette amusante Let's implement what we've learnt with the
following color palettes. quels mots pourrait-on utiliser
pour décrire les palettes ci-dessous? Which words could we use to describe the color
palettes below? Let's have a look at the
first one. We've got rouge, orange, jaune These 3 tones are quite bright. they are warm. I think we would maybe
use the word chaleureux une palette chaleureuse, cheerful. Because of these really
warm and strong colours We could also say flamboyant,
the t here is muted. flamboyant. Then this
one is much softer. We've got beige, taupe et vert clair When I look at these 3 colours, they do evoke a more
natural palette. Here I would go for
natural, calme Of course here it's
just my opinion. And if you've got some other
ideas and you would like my opinion or
some feedback on it, feel free to post your comments
in the discussion section. I'd be more than happy to help. And this one, we've jaune-orangé, vert profond, et ici, vert-jaune which once again is a green that does have a little
bit of yellow in it. When I look at these colours, I think about plants,
leaves, tropical leaves. Kind of a jungle tropical vibe. Here, I could say luxuriant, lush. Botanique ou végétal for instance.
9. Implementation: Translation: I hope you're ready
for the next lesson. We're going to
translate a couple of sentences from
English into French, practice and implement
everything we've learnt so far. Here is the first sentence. So we're going to translate Voici la première phrase que nous allons traduire These orange and blue
tones are very harmonious because they
are complimentary. So let's have a look
first at the vocab. We've got tones here. that we
could translate by teintes ou tons Both would be correct. are very harmonious, harmonieux ou harmonieuses if you're using teintes which is a feminine noun. Complimentary, complémentaire. Alright, so let's translated it. Don't forget that here is the adjective
would go after the noun, so we would go for
ces tons oranges et bleus sont très harmonieux car ils sont
complémentaires parce qu'ils sont works as well fonctionne aussi I'm going to say again the
sentence but this time faster. ces tons oranges et bleus sont très harmonieux
car ils sont complémentaires there's a "liaison" très harmonieux That doesn't sound natural. if you'd like
to practice once again, repeat after me. ces tons oranges et bleus sont très
harmonieux car ils sont complémentaires We've got this palette
evoke summer, thanks to apricot, peach and cherry shades. Let's have a look at these
vocab. Palette is the same word So this first one
is easy.Evokes. We can say évoque. summer, été
thanks to, grâce à ou parfois peut être traduit par "à l'aide de" Here we're going
to stick "grâce à ". Apricot, peach and cherry
shades. Apricot looks like the English. Here the French is very close. Abricot, peach, pêche cherry, cerise. And shades can be
translated by nuances. the whole sentence then
becomes Cette palette évoque l'été
grâce à des shades needs to be translated by nuance and goes before the
adjectives here, which are abricot, pêche et cerise grâce à des nuances abricot,pêche et cerise Once again, I'm going to repeat cette palette évoque
l'été grâce à des nuances abricot,
pêche et cerise. the New York subway
COPD patient is doing. You can repeat after me. cette palette évoque l'été I hope you're ready for
our final translation. Including neutral colours in a an illustration is essential
to bring a peaceful vibe. Including , inclure, verbe inclure Neutral, neutre Illustrationis the same word
in French and in English. But in French you're
going to pronounce it illustration essentiel You can translate
to bring by transmettre Peaceful, as we've mentioned before
would be apaisant. To translate the vibe here, I would suggest atmosphere,
grave accent here. Let's have a look : inclure des couleurs neutres the adjective needs
an S as well here. Let's have a look. Inclure des
couleurs neutres dans une illustration est essentiel pour transmettre une atmosphère apaisante Inclure des
couleurs neutres dans une illustration est essentiel pour
transmettre une atmosphère apaisante liaison here You can repeat after me. Inclure des
couleurs neutres dans une illustration est essentiel pour
une atmosphère apaisante
10. Final Thoughts: I hope you've enjoyed
this colorful class. J'espère que vous avez aimé ce cours
haut en couleurs Hopefully you now feel more confident
to talk about color. Don't forget that
practise is key. So if you let you receive a regular French for
creative tips, sign up for my newsletter. You can also follow
me on Skillshare or Instagram to be notified when
new classes are coming up. You've enjoyed the class, I would love if you
could leave me a review. Also, feel free to reach out via e-mail or the
discussion section. If you've got any
questions, I'm here to help. If there's a subject
you would like to see covered in the French
for creative series, just let me know, I would
love to develop it. As a conclusion, there is also
something I wanted to mention. As I'm sure you've noticed I didn't
re-record or edit out the mistakes I did when speaking English
during the class. I did so on purpose
first because I want to show the reality of what speaking a second language is. But then I also want
to help you feel okay about your own mistakes when
you do practice your French. No matter how good you
become much you improve. There will always be some words You're not sure of
the pronunciation, Or maybe you end up with some wonky sentences
when you're tired. And I think it's just
normal and okay. Not having the perfect French shouldn't be refrain
you from practicing it when talking to native or when travelling
for instance. Just get started and it will get only easier. If you
practice regularly, you'll improve and feel
confident before you know it. See you soon in the next class. A bientôt dans un prochain cours! Bye
Marie Le Moal
