藍色嘅 / 蓝色嘅
laam⁴ sik¹ ge³
To say blue in Cantonese, use 藍色嘅 / 蓝色嘅 (laam⁴ sik¹ ge³) when describing something as blue. If unsure, use 藍色嘅 / 蓝色嘅. Wiktionary also lists 藍 / 蓝 (laam⁴).
Meaning: blue-coloured (adj)
Ways to say it
| Cantonese | Romanization (Wiktionary) |
|---|---|
| 藍色嘅 / 蓝色嘅 | laam⁴ sik¹ ge³ |
| 藍 / 蓝 | laam⁴ |
藍色嘅 is the adjective form, used before a noun, as in a blue car. The first form is written in traditional characters and the second in simplified characters.
What does it mean word for word?
laam⁴ means blue, sik¹ means color and ge³ is a particle that turns the noun into an adjective.
Which one should you use?
Use 藍色 (laam⁴ sik¹) as a noun for the color blue, and add ge³ to use it as an adjective. The single character 藍 (laam⁴) can be used as a shorthand for the color, though laam⁴ sik¹ is more common in full sentences.
Is it said differently in some regions?
In Guangzhou the word 青 is used for shades of blue or green blue.
Related words
How do you pronounce it?
It is pronounced laam⁴ sik¹ ge³. The numbers mark the tones: a low falling tone, a high level tone and a mid level tone.
Did you know?
- The particle 嘅 (ge³) used to make 'blue' an adjective is a contraction of a formal word meaning 'belonging to', effectively turning 'blue color' into 'of blue color'.
- The character 藍 is actually a phono-semantic compound, where one part represents the plant 'indigo' from which the blue dye was originally extracted.
- In many Cantonese contexts, the color 'blue' is often indistinguishable from 'green' in the minds of speakers, frequently sharing the same character 青 (cing1).
Examples in context
- 我喜歡藍色的襯衫。I like blue shirts.
- 這本書的封面是藍色的。The cover of this book is blue.
- 我買咗件藍色嘢。I bought something blue.
- 睇，呢度有好多藍色嘢。Look, there are many blue things here.
Sources
- Wiktionary, “blue” translations, CC BY-SA 4.0, dump of 2026-09-26.
