Czech Colors & Descriptions: černý, černá, černé

Colors are the friendliest way to learn Czech's most important habit: adjectives change their ending to match their noun. Master six colors and the habit comes free.

The Six to Know

Colors Are Adjectives — They Agree

Like dobrý/dobrá/dobré from the gender lesson, every color wears the ending of its noun: -ý for masculine, -á for feminine, -é for neuter.

Dám si černou kávu.

I'll have a black coffee.

Note: After dám si the adjective follows its noun into -ou: černou kávu. Just notice it for now.

Describing Things

Beyond color, the first descriptive pairs: velký/malý (big/small), nový/starý (new/old), hezký (pretty). Ask about color with «Jakou barvu má…?» — what color is…?

Common Mistakes

One ending for everything. černý káva grates on Czech ears — káva is feminine: černá káva.
Neuter -o thinking. The neuter adjective ending is -é, not -o: dobré pivo, černé pivo.
žlutý vs zelený. Both start alive with color; ž = yellow, z = green. The háček decides.

What You Can Do Now

You can describe things by color and size with endings that agree, order černou kávu, and answer jakou barvu má — the agreement habit is planted.