【正文】 , and so on. Both kinds of color terms are important in expressing colors in English. Expressing basic color words On English Color Words and Their Translation into Chinese 2 There are four ways of expressing of light colors. One of the way of expressin light colors is made up of only a word, for example, azure, cerulean, glaucous, tan, hazel, filemot, maple, opaline, sulphureous, rose, viridity, etc. Light color can also be expressed by a bination of an adjective and a color word, for example, light yellow, light blue, pale gray, etc. In the third way to express light color, the bination of a color word and the suffixes such as – ish , y, or –scent is adopted, for example: blueish (bluish), yellowish, greenish, reddish, purplish, violescent, viridescent, iridescent, etc. While one or two words appear pale in expressing color, phrases are adopted, for example, with a tincture of red (with a little red), vivid green. Besides the above light color words, there are some dark color words. Some of them are expressed by only one word, for example: crimson, petunia, mulberry, mauve, luteous, puce, etc. Sometimes “deep”or “dark” can be added to indicate dark colors with another color word, for example, deep red, deep green, dark brown, etc. Dark colors can also be expressed by bining two color words to indicate only a kind of color, for example, bluegreen, blueblack, indigoblue, etc. Besides the above expressions, color words can express other plex color concepts with many other adjectives, for example, in order to express the vulgar and gaudy color the basic color words can be placed after “staring”, thus “staring red” is formed. In order to suggest that there is a kind of changeable light, the word “iridescent” is added before color words. For example, English people always use “iridescent blue” to describe the color of peacock’s feather. The sea also has such a changeable light, so “iridescent blue” can be used to describe the color of the surface of the sea. Similarly, the word “l(fā)ush” is usually used together with the color word “green” to suggest “bright green”?！癲rab” with “yellow” to indicate the meaning of “dark yellow”。 or “flaming” or “burning” with “red”to indicate “bright red”, etc. Expressing more than one colors One way to express more than one colors is by using only one word, for example: motley, multicoloured. A second way is by putting the word “and” between two color words to indicate two colors, for example: black and white, black and blue, white and red. The third way to express two or more than two colors is by the use of prepositions, for example: white colico with red, in amazing colors, in all the tinctures of the rainbow, red of (with) a blue tint, in all tints of green. Expressing color words with the help of material objects People always name the concrete surface colors with the help of color sources. This process is formed by the symbolic concepts from people’s perceptional experience given by colors. It not only changes the abstract into what is called the universal phenomenon of On English Color Words and Their Translation into Chinese 3 the color language. Naming colors with materials is one of the most direct and effective ways of expression, because symbol is no better than the material with a concrete color to take the place of that color. In English, there are many materials which directly express different kinds of colors, for example, using alabaster, eggshell, ivory, pearl, silver to express white: 1) Her skin was white as alabaster. (Zhang 80) (她的皮膚光潔雪白 ). 2) Her room was painted soft eggshell. (Zhang 82) (她的房間刷成了乳白色的 ). 3) My shirt is more ivory color than white. (Zhang 83) (我的襯衣與其說是白色的 , 不如說是 象牙白 ). In example 1), white as alabaster means snowwhite skin or white as snow. In example 2), eggshell refers to milk white , as everybody know, the milk color is white. In example 3), ivory means white as elephant teeth. These three examples all involve the description of the color of white, and obviously they refer to white in different degrees. This difference can hardly be felt if described in words. However, by associating them with the materials in our life, we can tell this difference quite easily based on our perception of the world. Besides white, other color words can also be expressed by bining them with different material words, for example, ? Red: rose red, carnation red, poppy red, ruby red, strawberry red. ? Orange: apricot orange, copper orange, marigold orange, pumpkin orange. ? Yellow: amber yellow, butter yellow, canary yellow, peach yellow, sand yellow, honey yellow. ? Green: jade green, fir green, olive green, emerald green. ? Brown: chestnut brown, cocoa brown, fox brown, leather brown, toast brown, biscuit brown. ? Blue: cornflower blue, malt blue, cyan blue, pelican blue. ? Gray: bat gray, gun gray, metal gray, moleskin gray. ? Purple: lilac purple, pansy purple, mallow purple, orchid purple. Materials and color words can together indicate some concrete colors. Material as mentioned above is called color source, and color word is usually a kind of color generic, restricted or modified by the material world. Color word bees a concrete color symbol, On English Color Words and Their Translation into Chinese 4 for example, in “fire red ”, and “fire”modifies “red”, suggesting that “red” is a color name. “Fire red” is also a kind of metaphor, and in fact it is equal to “red is like fire”. Because it is impossible to invent so many abstract and special nouns to indicate all the varieties of a