I am quite fascinated with the synaesthetic qualities of the Chinese weather forecast in Guangzhou. Kojo Idrissa describes them as such:
Ok, it's been raining almost ALL DAY here. At some point, they put up a little "rain alert" icon on the GZ/GD (Guangzhou, my city/Guangdong, my province)stations. It was a picture of a cloud with three drops of rain falling from it and a hanzi next to the cloud. It started with the hanzi "黄" which means 'yellow'. The cloud and the hanzi were both yellow. I assumed that meant, "Hey, there's a lot of rain. Keep an eye out. A few hours ago, the hanzi changed to "红" which is "hong" meaning 'red'. The cloud changed color too. So, I guess that means, "Dude, it's been yellow ALL FUCKIN' DAY! RUN!" Or something.I know that the Japanese don't really have a word for "green," opting for the words 緑色 (midori-iro) and 蒼い色 (aoi-iro) instead. Both of which are greenish blues. I wonder if it is the same in Chinese.
Again, I'm glad I'm on the 5th floor.
Comments
There's a "green" (lu4 se4) that's the green of green tea and jade. I think that's the most green green in Chinese. The others are all blue-greens.
There's a green (qing1) that can be green or blue, or clear/bright/the color of lush growth. It's usually used to describe vegetables.
There's cui4 that's blue green, or it means kingfisher.Lan2 is usually used to describe the blue sky, although qing1 can also be used.
What about brown and yellow in Japanese? In Chinese, sometimes these two colors are the same.
Brown is zong1 se4 (the color of palm trees), he2 se4 (the color of coarse cloth), or ka1fei1 se4 (the color of coffee).
Huang2 se4 is either yellow or brown. Huang2 is from the radicals "bright" and "fields." I guess fields can either be yellowish or brownish, depending on the season.
Sight is at least half brain. Weird.
you should install the microsoft office language tool bar (it comes with the office installation cd). although it works like crap with windows xp (but just great on mac os x), it will translate the phonetic reading of hanzi into the proper character. and if multiple characters are available (like hana in japanese - flower or nose), you can choose the appropriate one.