Teaching Art - Colors in different languages

[velvetkatze]

Just found out that colors of the rainbow are different in Russian and English, so not sure what to teach my baby now. We live in UK, so she's most likely to use it in English, just wanted to know if anyone else discovered similar problems?
Also - I have a set of color cards for EL with Russian names of the colors, and realized that these names are descriptive in each language and therefore don't literally translate. Where to find correct English names for colors with color sample? Visually it doesn't matter as long as my baby knows one shade from another but I just don't want someone tell her that she's wrong when she's acually correctly naming them from what she learned (if it makes any sense)
Thanks for any suggestions and opinions!

[mario]

Hello velvetkatze,

If understood well, I guess I'm doing the same. I teach my son color names in English, and I'm letting the "world" and my wife teach it for him in Portuguese. But for those cases when, for example, there are more names for the same color variation in a different language, I have no case to tell you. But I guess that for me this happens with some other words, for example the "to be" verb. In Portuguese there is two verbs with different meanings for the same verb "to be".

For example: I am happy.

In Portuguese I can say "Eu sou feliz", which means, I am a happy person, or "Eu estou feliz", which means I am happy now.

I guess kids learn that difference quite well without explanation needs, just the way they learn irregular verbs and sight words.

About colors, main resources I use is a book, with colors and names written in English, a cartoon called Color Crew and Lego parts when I play with him I say the name of the colors. I do the same when we play with cars, or when we see flowers on the street.

I hope this may help you 

Regards,

Mario

[Korrale4kq]

I have seen rainbow colors differently in English also.
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple were what I learnt as a young kid. 
As an older kid I learnt red, orange, yellow, green, indigo and violet.
I have also seen pink added to rainbow colors.

[Korrale4kq]

Apparently Isaac Newton coined the rainbow colors. He started with 5 then expanded to 7. They are red, orange, yellow, green, blue(which is really cyan), indigo and violet.

[velvetkatze]

Thanks everyone!
Korrale4kq – you’re absolutely right, colors of the rainbow differ even in English!
I guess it’s because spectrum colors blend into each other and so open to free interpretation. I found good article here (which is useful if you are making BITs about Rainbow)  : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colors_of_the_rainbow#Number_of_colours_in_spectrum_or_rainbow
 I guess I’d just have to teach my girl to stand by her opinion if she knows she’s right and not to be put off by someone saying that she isn’t. That might backfire 
Mario – I agree with you regarding the language differences, children figure out pretty quickly that there’s no literal translation and learn how to use languages independently from one another, but I think it’s a bit different when visuals (like colors) are involved.  I will check out your resources, thanks for these!
For those who are interested in the topic and planning on teaching more than basic colors, I found few very useful links:
Color naming: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_naming (scroll to the bottom and click on individual shades to open each in separate window)
Interesting blog on the color subject:  http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2007/07/24/32-common-color-names-for-easy-reference
Where did colors get their names: http://explorationart.wordpress.com/2011/12/23/where-did-the-colors-get-their-names/ - lots of illustrations and other info for teaching facts about Art

[Korrale4kq]

It is not just colors that are tricky to teach. There are a lot of little things that I have to explain have more than he 'right' answer.
I taught James that a circles have no sides and it is a series of points. But when he is to answer questions about circles it is more often claimed  that circles have 1 side. 

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