What kind of blue is 蒼
and what kind of blue is 青
?
Thanks!

-Mesqueeb

Both are technically the same shade on a color scale. The difference is that the individual kanji have nuances to the meaning, and the different words they're used in create associations to their character. The different kanji will give a different mental image to a reader's mind, but as far as actual shade of color goes, both are 0, 154, 214 on the RGB scale.

Thanks for the info Aijin. Perhaps you can flesh out this different mental image? We obviously have different words for blue, but they usually mean different RGB blues. Azure, navy, sky, periwinkle (lol), powder...these all have different feelings as well as RGB colors.

I know two words with that kanji, if it can be of help:
鬱蒼（うっそう）： thick; dense; luxuriant (talking about vegetation, I think)
蒼白（そうはく）： pale (someone's face)

Aijin Wrote:Both are technically the same shade on a color scale.

*sigh* Kids these days...

青 is the broadest and includes 蒼, 碧, and so on. 蒼 is more darker and ranges from dark green to dark blue. A dark bluish weed is 蒼. If you look up the sky on a moonlight night, you see 蒼. 碧 is lighter and more greenish.

青 has a connotation of immaturity. 蒼 is used figuratively when someone looks pale. Moonlight is often described as 蒼, thought it's not blue at all. This is probably because a place under moonlight is usually 蒼; you probably use a dark blue color when you paint a picture of a dark room where moonlight shines.

So "azure" can never be 蒼 while "navy" can. A blue sky is definitely within the range of 青 but may be a little too light to be described as 蒼. "Periwinkle" has a violet/purple shade to my eyes.

That said, Japanese color words are not defined by RGB or anything. They have their own meanings, connotations and whatnot. If you're talking about kanji, then things get more complicated because they also have their own meanings just like words. You might run across 蒼 when the color of the thing referred to is not 蒼 at all; the speaker may be referring to the sense of darkness in it.

Just a wee note - if you happen to be in China this 青 is green >_< , confused me a little to say the least.

Aijin Wrote:but as far as actual shade of color goes, both are 0, 154, 214 on the RGB scale.

What about λ(nanometers)?

liosama Wrote:

Aijin Wrote:but as far as actual shade of color goes, both are 0, 154, 214 on the RGB scale.

What about λ(nanometers)?

http://www10.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%23009AD6

Hue of 197 degrees, not found something to convert that to a wavelength

magamo Wrote:

Aijin Wrote:Both are technically the same shade on a color scale.

*sigh* Kids these days...

I guess that came from here or similar:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional...s_of_Japan

interesting, but broken on so many levels...

Unless of course, we're talking about traffic lights, which are あお.

I've long suspected the association between 青 and greenery (mainly due to the place 青山 and the beer 青島 and not the traffic lights). I've always been meaning to look it up. Looking the kanji up now in Shirakawa's book gives the following:

青

形声。もとの字は靑に作り、音符はせい。金文の字形では上部は生であった。下部の丹は丹を採取する井戸の形で、青丹（青の丹）はその井戸から採取された。丹は硫黄を含む土石で、絵の具の材料となった。丹には各種の色のものがり、「山海経」には白丹・青丹・丹雘の名が見える。青色の絵の具はこの丹を材料として作られた。青は、「あお、あおい」の意味に用いられた色で、青も朱も鉱物質のものであるから変色せず、器の聖化などに用いられている。生は草の生え出る形で、草の色は青色に近い色である。

青

Semasio phonetic character (one part suggests meaning, the other suggests pronunciation). The original character was written as 靑 and the phonetic part of the character is 生（せい）. On gold engravings, the upper part of the character was 生. The 丹 on the bottom represents the shape of Ni (丹 - earth?) that was picked from the bottom of wells. The colour Aoni (reference the wikipedia page above), is the colour of blue Ni picked from those wells. Ni was a mixture of stones and earth that included sulphur, and became part of the ingredients for tools to make pictures. Each colour can be found within Ni and in the Senkaikyo (ancient Chinese text on Geography), the names of 白丹, 青丹 and 丹雘 can be seen. Materials for making blue (青色) pictures were made using this Ni as an ingredient. 青 is a colour with the meaning of 「あお、あおい」. Both 青 and 朱 are minerals and can be used to sanctify containers and other things. 生 is in the shape of sprouting grass and grass has a colour which is close to the colour of 青.

Hmm. Shirakawa's usually a lot clearer than this. My translation isn't that great, mainly because I'm not fully understanding the original. I get the gist but not exactly crystal clear...

Thanks for the enlightments ^^

Thanks for the explanation, magamo. I've been imagining 蒼 was a paler blue all this time. Context based learning can suck sometimes.

I wouldn't say that 蒼 is paler at all. In my mind it's darker and thicker than 青. 蒼 is the ocean, containing depth, while 青 is more airy and light, such as the sky. 蒼い森 is more logical than 青い森, for example, because 森 contains that depth and fullness.

Keep in mind that this is more of the artistic scale of color, and both can vary in actual hue massively in someone's mind, just as the English word 'blue' can represent many shades.

But as far as the literal, scientific sense, 青 and 蒼 are the same shade. If you go to a store and ask for 蒼 paint, it's going to be identical to 青 paint.

Aijin Wrote:蒼い森 is more logical than 青い森.

Are you insulting 青森 (Aomori Prefecture)?

Joking aside, 蒼 collocates with plants, and hence 蒼 in 蒼い森 is most likely describing the color. 青 has the same function as 蒼 in this regard, but it often implies immaturity, youthfulness, etc. so 青 in 青い森 can be describing the age of the forest. 碧 in 碧い森 is emphasizing greenish color and has a sense of transparency. I might use 碧 when I can see the inside of the forest to some extent from outside, there are a river and a lake, or blinding sunlight is making the forest look greener and transparent.

Aijin Wrote:But as far as the literal, scientific sense, 青 and 蒼 are the same shade. If you go to a store and ask for 蒼 paint, it's going to be identical to 青 paint.

Science doesn't work like that. If you were a scientist, you'd collect a statistically meaningful number of 青 and 蒼 paints at random from randomly chosen shops, compare colors, and conclude that the average shade of 蒼 is darker and the range of 青 is wider.

If you buy 100 青 paints and 100 蒼 pains from various shops, would the average shade of 青 be identical with that of 蒼?

Certainly JCIE (日本照明委員会) and some other organizations define standard colors, but none of them has anything to do with the Japanese language, science, or literal meanings. Does the "web color" represent colors in English? Partly yes, because they're the standard colors in HTML. But I don't think the fact that a pair of colors fall into the same color category in HTML codes or any other standard color system means they're literally, scientifically (What's this supposed to mean anyway?) the same color.

This is related: ポチッと

I just realised in Vietnamese blue has the same word as green as well (ignoring suffix/adjective thingy)!

magamo Wrote:Are you insulting 青森 (Aomori Prefecture)?

Ironically my hometown is in 青森県 And 青森 definitely fits the landscape better than 蒼森.

蒼, pardon me if someone has mentioned it already, can also refer to a kind of dye used in clothing (蒼染め）. Judging from the shirt I'm wearing right now, I'd say it's a deep and saturated blue, close to indigo but not dark like navy.

And yes, the reason for all the words like 青春, 青リンゴ, and the fact that we call the green light at the stop light 青, among other things, points to 青 originally having indicated a color closer to green.

My Japanese friends tell me that

junior associates, trainees, fresh vegetables, and green lights (driving) are among the things that they call "aoi"

are there any other terms that or unconventional/non-intuitive things aoi can apply to?

I hereby make use of the "one bump" rule.

If I can't get any replies to the aoi question, I suppose I'll try a thread next.

Since I'm here, I might as well just drop this off:

TheTrueBlue Wrote:My Japanese friends tell me that

junior associates, trainees, fresh vegetables, and green lights (driving) are among the things that they call "aoi"

are there any other terms that or unconventional/non-intuitive things aoi can apply to?

"Aoi" holds the connotation of new and fresh. That's why trainees and new guys in the office could be called "aoi". That's the extent of my understanding of it

TheTrueBlue Wrote:My Japanese friends tell me that

junior associates, trainees, fresh vegetables, and green lights (driving) are among the things that they call "aoi"

are there any other terms that or unconventional/non-intuitive things aoi can apply to?

So, what would you say if I said, "My American friends tell me that "blue" collocates with "language" and "helmet," which isn't intuitive to me. Are there any other terms that or unconventional/non-intuitive things "blue" can apply to?" Blue dahlia? Blue devils? Blue flu? Blue box? Blue laws? Blue cheese? Blue Monday? Blue moon? Which do you think is non-intuitive to me? How many of them do you think are aoi?

Seriously, how do we know what you think is non-intuitive when it depends entirely on your fluency of Japanese and other languages you speak? Of course I know a plethora of aoi things the average native English speaker wouldn't think are blue because "あお" and "blue" are two entirely different notions. But obviously it's not feasible to list them all. Besides, your intuition should be greatly influenced by Mandarin, I guess.

Is it enough if I give some really weird examples that adult native Japanese speakers know but 99.9999% learners wouldn't? It'd be a list of words like 青色申告 and 青ぶくれ. If you want more practical words, I can add words like 青息吐息, 青い鳥, and whatnot if you don't know them. Are 青汁 and 青潮 intuitive to you? If not, I don't know where to begin.

Woot! I'm glad someone knows about this here.

No, if most Japanese people don't know about it, it's fine, don't want to sound like I'm practicing for a period play or something. But if adult native speakers know about it, then it might come up at some point.

When I say non-intuitive, I just mean anything that's a different color, like green vegetables or green lights, or has no visual connection with the color blue, like trainees.

Blue here meaning only the color itself. So universally recognizable examples like the ocean or the sky or a blue dress are intuitive.

For example, "blue moon" is an expression, but the color blue has no obvious connection to the moon in English. How many people in English would bring up the moon, when someone says I'll give you 50 bucks if you tell me about something that's "blue." Also blue as in depression, blue as in the "Blues" kind of music, these are examples of what I was looking for when I wrote "non-intuitive." It's the color itself.

Thank you very much. Especially because my Japanese friends say if I was in a car with them and I said "Oh the light turned midori　緑” They would think something along the lines of "Ehh... A gaijin mistake, ま。。さすが外人だから。。。しょうがない。。。変に。。。” Not sure it's always the best way to stand out, but if it's common knowledge, like many Japanese myths e.g. Bunny pounding mochi in the Moon, I'd rather know it than not.

Thanks again.

@TheTrueBlue.

First of all, "blue" and 青/蒼/碧 are slightly different colors. As I said earlier in this thread, "blue" can refer to a more purplish color than あお while the Japanese あお includes more greenish colors. Actually color isn't universal at all. Have you ever heard of the famous "how many colors in the rainbow" thing? If you haven't, google is your friend.

If you're interested in connotations and stuff, I already briefly talked about them in my previous posts. I think I wrote about あお as "pale" and so on.

Also, just because you know the range of a color you're going to use doesn't mean you can choose the right word. You said the color of the sky is universal so it should be intuitive. But it seems to me that "blue sky" and 青い空 are two different things. The latter can refer to a night sky as in 星が煌めく青い空, but I don't know if it's not stange to use "blue sky" to describe a starry sky. I'd use "blue night sky" to mean 青い空 if it's a night sky, thought some may say it's more like 青い夜空. Correct me if I'm wrong; English isn't my mother tongue. If my observation isn't completely wrong, it seems that the fixed idiomatic word 青空 is closer to "blue sky" because it doesn't mean a night sky. By the way, neither 青夜空 nor 夜青空 is a word.

So I don't think it'd help much to list English keywords that あお can be applied to, and it's impossible to list all unconventional/non-intuitive Japanese words that have あお or あおい can be applied to because it means I have to mention hundreds of words. So in this post I only give some examples that I think are culturally interesting but the average textbook doesn't mention.

Among others, 月光 (moonlight) is one of the not-blue-but-aoi things I think are not intuitive to you (See #5 in this thread). If you read Japanese novels/poems/whatever, you will often come across expressions like 蒼い月の光 and 月が蒼く光っている. As I said, a night sky can be あお in Japanese, a night sky with the moon is often described as あお, e.g., 蒼い月夜 and 月の浮かぶ青い夜空. Since these phrases are poetic in nature, they're must-learn expressions if you're going to spend a romantic night with your ideal virgin under the moonlight. You'll thank me later.

Another example is horses. I think you say these four horses (青毛) are black, but in Japanese they have 青毛 (blue hair). They are 黒い馬 but have 青毛. Strangely enough, あおうま refers to horses of these colors: 芦毛 (aka 葦毛) and 白毛. You probably think they're gray and white respectively, and if your Japanese friends are not familiar with horse colors, they might say they're 白 too. But Japanese people in the know say they're あお. Actually 青 can mean "horse" when used as a word, though people who don't read novels and classic works may not know this. But be warned. You said your girl should be a kind, gentle, and caring virgin, right? Then chances are she's waiting for 白馬に乗った王子様 (the literal translation is "a prince riding a white horse"). This is an oft-used figurative phrase that means a rich, good-looking guy with a great personality who comes to save a girl from her boring life, i.e., the Japanese equivalent of "knight in a shining armor." The 白馬 (はくば) here is actually あおうま, but it sounds more romantic than あおうま in many cases. Yes. This whole paragraph is pretty much useless for your virgin hunt purpose, but it might be interesting if you're interested in the Japanese culture, not only in girls.

A lot less romantic example is 青ばな (also 青っぱな). The greenish snot running from your nostrils is somehow 青 in Japanese. Wipe it off before you meet her.

You may already know the Japanese word っぽい, which roughly means "-ish," "like" or something along those lines. If you use it with 青い, then it becomes 青っぽい. Of course its literal meaning is "blue-ish," but it often means "naive," "innocent" and whatnot. You're very 青っぽい in this sense; I'm not referring to your skin color, but your personality. It's not a derogatory word per se. It all depends on context. Actually innocence is often regarded as a good thing. By the way, the Japanese equivalent of "to lose your innocence/modesty" is すれる and has a negative connotation. Your ideal girl shouldn't be a すれた女の子.

I can go on and on and on, but I'm bored. It won't help much anyway. There are hundreds (or thousands?) of words that are あお but not blue. Sometimes they're intuitive if you're already familiar with connotations and implications of the color あお. Sometimes figurative usages are too idiomatic. Learning connotations mentioned somewhere in this thread will help you build your passive vocabulary, but I think that kind of knowledge alone is useless when it comes to developing your active vocabulary; just because you know 青い can imply immaturity doesn't mean you can use the word in that sense properly. If anything, if you used あお based only on that kind of knowledge, chances are you'd come out sounding like a foreigner who doesn't understand the Japanese culture or the language.

By the way, Aijin and I are Japanese if you didn't know. My English is questionable, but I'm more than happy to help you learn my mother tongue. I'm not a qualified teacher or anything though.

TheTrueBlue Wrote:I hereby make use of the "one bump" rule.

If I can't get any replies to the aoi question, I suppose I'll try a thread next.

Since I'm here, I might as well just drop this off:
http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/4142/...848599.jpg

A more suiting image.