I'm looking for the most natural-sounding way to express the general concept of blue-green colours (such as cyan or teal) in Japanese. By "general concept", I mean all colours that are neither entirely blue nor entirely green, in shades ranging from dark to light. Here are some examples, taken from the CSS3 specification:
Aquamarine
Cyan
Turquoise
Teal
After a bit of research, I've come up with four possibilities.
青緑 / あおみどり / aomidori
This seems to be the best option (it literally translates as "blue-green") but I'm not sure whether or not it includes darker shades, such as teal.
Suggested translations:
水色 / みずいろ / mizuiro
Literally translates to "water-colour", but seems to lean more towards light blue than general blue-green. Again, I'm not sure that this would include darker blue-green shades such as teal.
Suggested translations:
シアン / shian
Literally "Cyan", so almost certainly doesn't include darker shades, such as teal. I couldn't find this in either of my (printed) dictionaries.
Suggested translations:
ターコイズブルー / taakoizu buruu
Literally "Turquoise Blue", so (again) almost certainly doesn't cover darker shades, such as teal, and (again) doesn't exist in either of my printed dictionaries.
Suggested translations:
tl;dr: Which of the above (if any) is the most suitable translation for general "blue-green" colours in Japanese?
Answer
The most generic would be 「[青緑色]{あおみどりいろ}」 or 「[青緑系]{あおみどりけい}の[色]{いろ}」-- especially the latter IMHO. It covers a wide range of tints and shades of greenish-blues.
「[水色]{みずいろ}」 is just light blue with absolutely no green in it. It is the name of one of the more common colors of crayon, so practically no native speakers would imagine a different color upon hearing the name.
「ターコイスブルー」 is as you said; It does not include a darker shade of green. Another problem is that not everyone would be familiar with the term.
「シアン」, I have never heard of. I am pretty sure most other native speakers would be unfamiliar with the word, too.
No comments:
Post a Comment