Talking about colours

Introduction Beth and Neil have a real conversation in easy English about colours – reds, blues, pinks and many other colours and shades. Learn to talk about colours that suit you... and colours that clash! Vocabulary bright strong, reflecting lots of light, like yellow suits (you) looks good on (you) clash the colours look bad when they are together beige light yellow-brown colour, like pale sand Transcript Beth Hello and welcome to Real Easy English. In this podcast we have real conversations in easy English about everyday topics. I'm Beth.   Neil And I'm Neil. Don't forget that there is a video version of this podcast on our website, bbclearningenglish.com. You can read along because there's subtitles on the video.   Beth Hello, Neil. That is a very bright shirt you're wearing today. Is it new?   Neil Yes, it is. Thank you. If that is the right thing to say.   Beth It is! I like it – nice and red.   Neil Yes, it's bright red, isn't it? And we are talking about colours today.   Beth We are indeed. We're going to talk about our favourite colours and why we like them.   Neil Mmm. So, Beth, what's your favourite colour?   Beth My favourite colour is green, but not any shade of green. I like a dark green, I like a light green, but I don't like lime green. And we call it lime green because it's that bright green colour of the fruit – the lime.   Neil Yeah.   Beth What about you? Do you have a favourite colour?   Neil Yeah. Well, I'm a bit annoyed now...   Beth Because your favourite colour's green too?   Neil Exactly. My favourite colour is also green and I like those, kind of, forest greens. In fact, Beth, you and I have jumpers that are basically the same as each other. So, I've got a green jumper and you've got a green jumper.   Beth Yeah. And they're both knitted so they're quite thick. And in the winter, we have to be careful not to wear them on the same day. So, Neil, are there any other colours that suit you – that look good on you?   Neil Hmm. That's an interesting word. If something suits you, it means that it looks good on you. I think it depends on the other things you're wearing.   Beth Mmm.   Neil So, you know, any colour's OK as long as it goes along with the other colours.   Beth Yeah, that's true because sometimes if colours are maybe a bit too similar, they can clash. That means that they look bad together.   Neil Yeah.   Beth I always think orange and pink clash. Neil Mmm.   Beth But also, we're probably unfashionable and those colours probably look quite good these days. What about in your house? Do you have painted walls and what colour are they?   Neil Yeah. So, when we moved into our house about 11, 12 years ago, it was quite fashionable to have grey walls, so there's lots of grey. We did lots of grey painting, but now it looks a bit boring and some different stronger colours are better, I think.   Beth You need to get to the DIY shop and start choosing some brighter colours maybe.   Neil Yeah, I think a nice brightly coloured room is quite... makes you feel good.   Beth Your office is very brightly coloured though.   Neil My home office?   Beth Yeah.   Neil Yeah, I've got a green... Of course, I've got a green office.   Beth Yeah.   Neil Yeah.   Beth In my house, quite a lot of the walls are pink, but only on one wall in a room. So, for example, in my dining room, the main... the big wall is pink, but the rest is more of a beige – so, that's a sort of light brown, cream, yellow, but very, very light colour, which is quite common in UK houses.   Neil Yeah, it's a bit like grey because it's not as strong. If you paint your room beige or grey, it probably won't clash with other things.   Beth Exactly. You can put a bright colour with a beige or a grey – or neutral colour, we can call these. And neutral colours are good because they go with anything else.   Beth Let's recap the language we heard during the conversation. We used some words to describe different colours, like bright. So, I said that Neil is wearing a bright red shirt. In fact, it's so bright it reminds me of a London bus or a telephone box.   Neil And we heard suits. If something suits you, it means it looks good on you. For example, that green jumper really suits you, Beth.   Beth And we had clash. If colours clash, it means they don't look good together. So, for example, some people think that orange and pink clash – they don't look good together.   Neil We heard the word beige, which is a colour which is very light brown, kind of yellow-brown, a bit like sand.   Beth That's it for this episode of Real Easy English. Why not try the worksheet on our website to test what you've learnt? That's bbclearningenglish.com.   Neil And we'll be back next week with another easy conversation. Join us again then. Goodbye!   Beth Goodbye! Now try this... Watch The London Letter Challenge. Download a free worksheet. Discover more programmes for your level.  Find all our latest programmes.