Free English Class! Topic: Colour - An Advanced Lesson 🎨🌈 (Lesson Only)

Well hello everyone and welcome to this English lesson about

colour. We live in a very colourful world. When you look

around you you see things like green leaves on the trees. You

see things like the yellow sun or the blue sky. But this

lesson is not going to be a lesson about the basic colours.

This isn't a lesson where I'm going to teach you the word for

red and yellow and blue and green. I'm expecting that you

know all of those things already. This is a little more

of an advanced lesson and you'll see in a minute what I

mean by that. This lesson on colour will be a lesson where

you will learn some English words and phrases to be able to

talk about colour in a more advanced way. Because we live

in a colourful world we have made up a lot of words and

phrases that we could use to talk about colour. So let's get

this lesson started. So when you talk about colour you're

actually talking about light. So colour is made either by

something that emits light like the sun emits light or

something that reflects light or refracts light reflecting

light is when the light hits something and bounces off my

understanding is that refracting is when light goes

through something and the direction of the light can

change. So I don't know a lot about light. Um this isn't a a

scientific lesson on colour. But what I will say is that

there is a spectrum. A visible spectrum of colours. A visible

or what we also call an optical spectrum. You'll notice it goes

from violet to red. Violet is another word for purple. And

you can also find this in two forms. Sometimes the red is on

the right. Sometimes the red is on the left. Depending on how

you're talking about those colours and the light that

produces them. By the way if you go past violet you get into

ultraviolet. And if you go past red you get into infrared. So

there you go. The visible spectrum of light is what gives

us the colours that we can see. You'll probably be familiar

with a rainbow. A rainbow is a phenomenon. A natural

phenomenon whereby light is broken up. White light is

broken up into its different wavelengths. And then we see

those colours. A rainbow is a very cool thing to see. It

happens when light goes through raindrops and that light is

then broken up and you can see each individual colour in the

rainbow. Um there is a little bit of a a myth around rainbows

that there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. That if

you could get to the end of the rainbow where it touches the

ground you would see all those beautiful colours and then

there would be a pot of gold there. But it's kind of

impossible because the closer you get to a rainbow the more

those that rainbow of colour moves away from you. You can't

actually get to the end of the rainbow. We have something

called a prism which is something made out of glass or

other clear material and what a prism does is when light goes

into a prism it does the same thing as what the raindrop is

doing. The light refracts and it separates into its

individual colours or scientifically its wavelengths.

So you'll see here there is a very famous rock band made an

album that had this on the cover if you can guess in the

chat I'll give you a cookie sorry there's no there's no

prize for guessing that one but a Prism is a really cool like a

a an object made out of glass or acrylic or another

transparent material in the shape of a triangle. When light

goes through it breaks up into its individual colours or

individual wavelengths. We have something called a colour

palette. So a colour palette can mean a couple of different

things. The most common use is in the world of design. If you

decided you wanted a web page made you would go to a design

company and they would say what's your colour palette? And

you would tell them what colours you normally use when

you design things. You'll notice on my YouTube channel I

use white and orange and black. So my colour palette is very

very limited. If you look at a Google logo though you'll see

that they use almost all the colours in the rainbow. So they

have a very broad colour palette. So when you design

something like a web page you can even use a colour palette

to design a room in a house. You might paint one wall one

colour and another wall a different colour and you might

buy curtains that are another colour and all of the colours

work together. So you choose a colour palette where the

colours look really really cool together. I see Stacy in the

chat saying it's Pink Floyd. There we go. There's something

called a colour wheel as well. A colour wheel is something

used in design to help choose colours. The colour wheel has

colours in the same order as the visible spectrum. And it

allows you to choose colours that are close to each other on

the colour wheel. Or opposite each other. Depending on how

you're trying to design something. So if I wanted to

design something with you know two different shades of purple.

I could use violet and red violet. If I wanted a couple

different shades of orange I could use red orange and

orange. So you'll see here the colour wheel shows you two

different kinds of colours. Warm colours and cool colours.

I should pause and let you know one thing. You'll notice that I

spell colour with the letter U but in some situations you will

see it without the U. In Canada we spell colour with the letter

U. In the United States they spell colour with no U.

Canadians tend to use both versions of it. The most

correct version for us has a U in it. But we when we see

colour without a U without a U. It doesn't bother us too much.

Unless I'm grading a student paper. Then I put a little red

X there in market as a a spelling mistake. We also have

something called a paint swatch. When you are deciding

to paint a room in your house. Maybe you don't like the

current colour. You painted it 10 years ago when that colour

was in fashion when that colour was very cool and everybody was

using it. And now maybe you've decided to repaint a room. You

would go to a hardware store and ask for some paint

swatches. Paint swatches show you all the different versions

or variations of different colours. So you would take that

home and maybe hold it up to the wall and then decide on

which colour from the paint swatch you think would work the

best. Um sometimes though when you pick a colour from the

paint swatch and then when you actually paint the whole room

in that colour it can look a little bit different. Because

that's just the nature of light and colour. Sometimes a colour

from a paint swatch when you put it on the whole wall it

looks just a little bit different. So we have two

different ways to describe colours. We have primary

colours. So generally the primary colours are considered

to be red, yellow and blue. Now that has changed a little bit

because of computers you'll hear terms like RGB monitor

which stands for red, green, blue. But I think that's

because the technology limited their ability to create yellow.

So generally the primary colours are considered to be

red, yellow and blue. And what do you think happens when you

mix primary Colours. You get secondary colours. So you'll

see the same drawing here. Where the red and yellow mixed

together you get orange. Where the red and blue mixed together

you get purple. And where the blue and yellow mixed together

you get green. I hope I said that alright. If not you can

see the chart beside me. Uh and you can see how primary colours

when mixed together will make secondary colours. We also have

words like tinge or hint or touch. So someone might paint

the wall in their house white but it might have a tinge of

blue in it. It might have a hint of blue in it. It might

have a touch of blue in it. Someone might buy a white

T-shirt. And then after they wash it with other clothes like

a brand new pair of blue jeans. It might end up having a tinge

of blue or a hint of blue in it. Because the dye from the

jeans went into the T-shirt. So a tinge or hint or touch is

when you talk about usually a colour white but when you can

see a little bit of another colour in it. By the way I'm

going to talk about black and white as colours. There's a big

argument in the world whether black is a colour or just the

complete absence of colour. Or whether white is a colour or if

it's just all the colours mixed together. I call black and

white colours. Uh at least for this English lesson I'm going

to. So you can describe colours in a lot of different ways. You

can say that oh that wears a lot of dark colours or he

usually buys cars that are a dark colour. A dark colour

would be any of these kinds of colours. Colours like a dark

blue or a dark grey or a dark brown. So when you add the word

dark. You mean you know kind of this somber dark look I guess

is what I want to say. They're not black but they're certainly

not very colourful or bright. Okay. So you can have a dark

red or a dark green. Um when I buy a van I usually get a

normal red but I could buy a dark red Van if I wanted to. So

that would be red that's a little less red with a little

more black in it. Hopefully that makes sense. We also have

bright colours. Some people like to dress in dark colours.

Some people like to dress in bright colours. They buy things

that are maybe neon or things that are reflective. Or things

where the colours themselves are just very very bright. You

can see the orange and the yellow and the green and the

blue in here. They're just giving off lots of colour. It's

very very bright. It's the opposite of dark. Okay these

are definitely not dark colours here. These are definitely

bright colours. We also have the word vibrant. When

something is vibrant it means it has a mix of colours and

it's very similar to bright. You could almost use these

words interchangeably. Like he always wears very vibrant

colours. Lots of bright blue and bright yellow and bright

pink. So I'm actually using the word bright to talk about

vibrant. But definitely sometimes people dress in

different ways. And some people like wearing very bright or

vibrant and some people prefer dark colours. We also would

call these muted tones. Okay when some when you mute the

sound you can't hear it you can also use that word to talk

about these colours you could say they're muted tones. And

some people like dull colours or sometimes if you look here

at night as the sun goes down it becomes harder to see the

colours around you and we would say that there's very dull

colours. You see here these buildings are kind of a brown.

A little bit of grey. Um there's just nothing popping

out. So we would certainly describe that as there are a

lot of dull colours. Like oh that part of town's not very

nice. All the buildings are painted with really dull

colours. They're just just not interesting. And we have the

word colourful. So this parrot is colourful. Um when someone

dresses in a colourful way. Or when I do a lesson like this

this is a very colourful lesson. It means you're going

to see a lot of different colours. Okay. Um a lot of

people right now are decorating outside of their houses for

Christmas. And they put up a lot of lights and it's a very

colourful display of lights. There is definitely probably in

about two weeks there will be more. But if you drive around

right now it's a very colourful trip around the neighbourhood.

There are a lot of Christmas lights. A lot of colourful

Christmas lights. So there are a lot of different ways to make

things colourful. Um paint is probably the most common. I'm

not sure when paint was invented. But if you don't like

the colour of a room you can paint If you don't like the

colour of your car you can paint it. So paint works as a

verb and as a noun. I'm going to buy paint because I want to

paint my car. So there I used it as a noun. I'm going to buy

paint because I want to paint my car. In order to paint you

need things like paint and you need a paint brush and other

things. But certainly painting is one of the quickest ways and

cheapest ways to make something look good again. If you have a

room in your house and you don't like the way it looks the

cheapest and best thing you could do is to put on a fresh

coat of paint. So a fresh coat of paint is a phrase that we

use to talk about painting something. You might walk into

a room and say wow this room needs a fresh coat of paint. If

it's been like 20 years since the room's been painted maybe

the paint is flaking off the wall and the colours have

become kind of dull. So I'm using the word dull you might

say hey we should pick out a bright colour because this room

needs a fresh coat of paint. We need to liven it up a bit with

a fresh coat of paint. And then there's also something called

matching colours. So people sometimes just wear clothes

that are colourful. But sometimes they wear clothes

where they've specifically chosen the colours so that they

match. In Canada in the winter. People very often will have a

scarf. A winter hat which we call a toque and a pair of

gloves where the colours all match. They will purposely buy

them to be all the same colour. Sometimes that colour is black.

Remember I said I was going to say black is a colour. So I my

actually have a grey winter hat and I have grey winter gloves.

I actually bought new ones. They say Canada on them. I

should wear them someday. But it is very common for people

not just in countries where there's winter. But it's very

common for people to buy clothing where the colours

match. Um and definitely in winter in Canada. You will see

a lot of people walking around wearing things that match.

Where the colours match. Sometimes in order to organize

things you will colour code things. When something is

colour coded it means that you've chosen different colours

to mean different things. Most of you I think would have done

this when you were students or maybe you're doing it now as a

student. Maybe you have a binder with papers in it. And

you have a divider and red means science class and green

means French class or English class. And yellow means science

class. We as human beings love to organize and one of the best

ways to organize is to color code things. My sister actually

works in an office at a hospital and they keep all of

everyone's health records and they are color coded. So when

they look at the wall they can see I think blue is people aged

65 and older. And then green is people from age 50 to 64 So

they have everything colour coded. So that very quickly

they can see and pick out what they need to do. Um you can see

here this binder it has marketing promotions sales

territories goals. So this is for a business. And in each of

those colour coded sections you would put that information and

the colours just help you very quickly see it. Or find it

sorry. Everyone usually has a favourite colour. Maybe I

shouldn't say everyone has a favourite colour. Most people

have a favourite colour. My favourite colour is orange.

Which might seem strange because I wear blue a lot. But

if I was to if someone said Bob what's your favourite colour I

would say my favourite colour is orange. My favourite colour

has been orange for a very very long time. Um I picked the

colour orange when I was in grade school when people were

saying what their favourite colour was. No one was saying

orange so I picked orange. Um it's not because my parents

came from Holland. By the way orange is the colour of most

sports teams from Holland or from the Netherlands. But

definitely my favourite colour is orange. You should be ready

to answer this question as an English learner. There are

going to be times where you'll have a conversation. You'll be

practicing your English and someone will say what's your

favourite colour? What's your favourite season? What's your

favorite food? What's your favorite kind of music? So what

is your favorite color? You should be ready to answer that

and give a reason why. Um there's something called

watercolours. So when you are someone who likes to paint

someone who likes to get a paint brush and a canvas and

use paint in order to paint. Sometimes you paint using water

colours. Let me make this bigger. Water colours usually

have a softer look to them. So it's paint that you mix with

water. And then you paint on your canvas. So a lot of times

kids will do watercolor painting when they're learning

how to paint in school. Because it's one of the easiest kinds

of paint to use. The colours are not quite as bright as you

might want them. But it's very easy to clean up when you are

done. Uh we also have something called food colouring. Um food

colouring is something that you use to give food colour.

Sometimes food will naturally have a colour. If you eat

spinach it is green. If you eat watermelon it is pink. But

sometimes in the cooking or baking process they will add

food colouring. When you buy cereal at the grocery store it

might have some food colouring in it to make it look a certain

colour. I'm not a big fan of food colouring. I would rather

just eat my food when it's it's normal colour but humans like

certain colours and so they have started to use food

colouring or they started to use food colouring many years

ago to give food different colours. And there's something

in the world called dyes. Dyes are different things you can

use to create colour in something that doesn't have it.

So if you have a piece of fabric that's white. You can

buy dye in order to change the colour of the fabric. Dyes are

made from all kinds of different things. Sometimes

there's a natural source for the dye. Sometimes they've just

found a chemical that will dye something a certain colour. But

when you have a T-shirt probably the most common type

of dye is or dying is called tie dyeing where you tie the

T-shirt in knots and then you dye different parts of it

different colours and then when you untangle the T-shirt it

looks really cool. That was very popular in the early 70s

or in the 1970s. People would tie dye their shirts. When

something doesn't have colour we say that it's colourless.

Water is colourless. It does not really have a colour. You

can see right through water. Um so when Something has a lot of

colour it's colourful. When something is a specific colour

you say it is that colour. My tractor is green. My van is

red. But when something has no colour you say it's colourless.

You would say air I guess is colourless. You can't actually

see it. Water is colourless. So when something has no colour.

When there's the complete absence of colour we would say

that it is colourless. Black and white. So when you take

pictures you can take pictures in colour or you can take

pictures in black and white. Um so generally when I take

pictures I take pictures in colour. I like colour

photographs. Um black and white is when you take a picture and

the only two colours present are black and white. So you can

see it adds this really cool look to it. A long time ago

when you watched television or went to a movie the movie or a

TV show was in black and white because hadn't invented color

yet. Um I used to have a black and white television when I was

a kid. There was colour television available but a

black and white television was cheaper. And so my parents

bought me a black and white television. Um I was happy when

I eventually got colour television. Um so black and

white would be any photograph or TV show where there is no

colour. That's how you would describe it. We have colours

too that we call pastels. Right now in the flower world people

really like colours that we would call pastels. A pastel

colour is not very bright. It almost looks a bit like a water

colour. It's a little washed out. So right now people really

like pastels. Like very light blues and light greens. And

light yellows and light pinks and light purples. Where

there's just a little bit it's more than a tinge. Okay so if

you look these blue shoes. There's more than just a hint

of blue. But there's not a lot of blue in it. They're kind of

it's a mixture of blue and white. So pastels. Very

interesting. When I eat what are they called macrons?

They're usually all different colours that are I would say

are pastel colours. We also have something called infrared.

Uh infrared is outside of the visible spectrum. It's outside

of the optical spectrum. Past red. And it's a way where if

you have special equipment you can actually see that non

visible light. So I don't know a lot about infrared but

sometimes I think they use infrared to see in the dark. Um

remember this isn't a science lesson but I think that's what

they use infrared for. It sees heat I think. We have something

too where some people are colour blind. I am a tiny bit

colour blind in the sense that black and dark blue look very

similar to me. I can't really tell the difference between

navy blue or dark blue and black. This is a test for

colour blindness. I see the number 74. Some of you might

see a different number in this. Because you are a little bit

colour blind. Maybe your blues and greens look the same.

There's all different versions of colour blindness. Usually

around two different colours that you see differently or you

see as the same. Um sometimes in my computer class when we're

doing design work I will realize that a student is

Colour blind because when I see what they're making the colours

don't really match up and you can then usually I say oh are

you a little bit colour blind? You won't lose points in my

class designing something if you are a little bit colour

blind. We have something called paint by number. Let me make

this a bit bigger. Sometimes people are really good at

painting and then there's people like me that aren't. If

I wanted to paint I could buy something called paint by

number. And what that means is that there are different spots

on the canvas and there will be a number there and if it says

number eleven it I can check a chart and it says eleven you

know dark green and then I know that in that box I have to

paint dark green. So it's something that kids do more

than adult. But definitely paint by number is something I

remember doing as a kid. It was a lot of fun. Um it's a great

way to do some painting if you're not good at painting. So

the number tells you what colour to use.

Also when I was a kid I had something called a colouring

book. I had many colouring books actually. And I would

take my coloured pencils or pencil crayons. Or crayons and

I would colour. I would colour in the little boxes using

Brent's phrasal verb there. So when you colour in the

different spots eventually you're done that page in the

colouring book. There are now colouring books for older

people. It can be very relaxing. I think this is

actually an adult colouring book. A colouring book where Um

it's a little more intricate and more difficult than a

children's book. Um but definitely when I was a kid

most of my colouring books were like Batman or Superman and

those types of characters. Um every year different companies

announce the colour of the year. So every year there's a

new colour announced and that's the colour of the year. People

use the colour of the year to decide how to paint rooms in a

house or a new building. They use it to decide what colour

flowers they want at a wedding. Sometimes people just ignore

the colour of the year. But this year I think this is from

Pantone. The colour of the year for 2022 for the year coming up

is October Miss it's not a very bright colour. It's quite it's

a very dull colour. Um I'm not super excited for this. Um I

think that this might be a nice colour to paint an office if

you're painting an office wall. It's not a nice colour for

wedding flowers. But that is the colour of the year for

2022. We'll see what that means for flowers. Um there is a

phrase one phrase I did think of with the word colour in it

and it's the phrase to pass with flying colours. When you

take a test and if you get 97 out of 100 or 100 out of 100 we

might say that you passed with flying colours. You didn't just

succeed. You did really really well on the test. So we would

say that you passed with flying colours. And we had this

question a couple of times. Uh people were asking about eye

colour. Everyone has there's quite a variety of eye colours

in the world. As I said my eyes are kind of a blue green. Uh

Jen's eyes are a little more green. Um one of my kids has

brown eyes. One of my kids has the same colour eyes as me.

There are many many different colours of eye in the world. Um

and we refer to that as eye colour. So a lot of times like

if you are when you go for your driver's license in Canada you

have to specify what your eye colour is when you fill out the

application so that they can identify you if they need to.

So I always write blue. I don't write blue green. But maybe I

should. Anyways, eye color is the term you use to refer to

the color of your eyes.