"I hate red color" or "I hate red": why exactly is the first option ungrammatical

Question

If a person wants to say that the most hated color for him is red (in general, no specific hues implied), could he say:

1. I hate red color.

I've found very little results for this sentence at Google. Is this combination (red color) very awkward in its effect?

I guess the natural way is to say:

2. I hate red.

But it's interesting why exactly the combination "red color" is unnatural in English in this context. In Russian, a similar phrase would be perfectly okay.

Is it because color calls for an article, and this would in turn call for the continuation of the sentence:

3. I hate the/a red color of ... (something).

I've been proofreading one text at lang-8 and found myself unable to explain in simple words why hating "red color" could be an unnatural phrase.

Answer 1

When "red" is followed by a noun, native English speakers will classify "red" as an adjective. If that noun is then singular (and the noun phrase is undetermined, i.e. has no definite article, indefinite article, or other determiner like "this" or "your" or something), then native English speakers hear the sentence as ungrammatical.

I hate red bicycles.

This one is grammatical because bicycles is plural. It is therefore like saying I hate bicycles but with the qualification that the bicycles are red.

I hate red meat.

This one is grammatical because meat is a mass noun, meaning it applies to a quantity of something, not a single something.

I hate red telephone.

This one, like I hate red color, sounds wrong because telephone is singular.

Answer 2

I think the sentence that you are looking for is "I hate the color red." This sentence suggests that you have a certain hatred or dislike of the certain color red, regardless of its medium or location. This is also a much more common sentence than your other options. I hope this answers your question.

Answer 3

"Red color" is unnatural because the color red isn't red. Instead, it's just called red. Think about it: A color has no color. It is a color but it does not have a color, like for example cars or balloons do. So a color can't be red. And that's why there's no red color. There's just the color red.

Compare color vs. paint. "Red paint" is ok because red paint is red. Paint can have a color.

Also compare color with number. "The color red" ~ "The number two". Just because the number is called two, there is not two of them. It's not to be put in the plural as one could expect. That is, it's "I hate the number two" and not "I hate two numbers". But maybe there are languages in the world that do this.

I don't know about it, but perhaps there's no difference between color and paint in Russian.

Similarly, in my native language, German, both color and paint are translated with "Farbe":

"Ich hasse rote Farbe." = "I hate red paint."

"Ich hasse die Farbe Rot." = "I hate the color red."

Maybe it's the same with Russian?

Answer 4

To answer your questions: Yes, the sentence "I hate red color" will sound awkward in most, if not all, English dialects.

In English, "red" can act as an object on its own, and adding something to the end of it will sound confusing. It would be like saying:

I hate Tuesdays days of the week.

which also sounds awkward. You can use a color as an adjective modifying a specific object:

I only ride green bicycles.

But when you're using "red" to describe the color itself, you just use "red."

That painting is red.

Fire trucks are usually red or yellow.

No elaboration is necessary. If you want to be more elaborate, you can, as Casey suggested, use the noun phrase "the color red," but it's not necessary: "red" by itself is perfectly idiomatic.

Answer 5

Colour

The noun colour can be countable, or uncountable.

1. Uncountable 'colour'

When we say colour in the uncountable sense, we are thinking about colour as a feature of the world. It is like light, or wetness. This feature cannot be counted.

2. Countable 'colour'

Usually, a countable 'colour' refers to a specific shade and type of colour:

• I didn't like the colour of the dress

In the example above, the speaker means they didn't like that specific shade and type of colour. For example, they don't mean 'blue'. They mean that exact type and shade of blue. So, usually 'a colour' is a unique example of a specific colour, not a very general class of colour such as "yellow" or "red". If we say a red colour, then this means a type or example of a red colour (not red in general). We use the colour in the same way. It means a specific colour that we are talking about. So for example we can say:

• I really like red colours, but I didn't like the red in that picture.

Notice that red is an adjective here. It is just describing colour. It is not being thought of as an entity of its own.

3. The noun 'red', The colour red

When we say the colour red, it is a bit like saying, my friend Bob. The first noun tells us the kind of thing we are talking about ( - my friend) and the second tells us what it is, or what its name is ( - Bob). This is an unusual use of the word colour in that it is used in an appositive construction. Saying I like the colour red is just like saying I like red. It means something like I like the colour which is 'Red'. Here red is a noun representing a type of colour.

4. I hate red colour

• I hate red colour

If colour is uncountable here, this sentence is quite strange. It means that the speaker hates colour which is red. This is possible, of course. However, a speaker is more likely to think just that they hate red itself, not colour which is red.

On the other hand if colour is countable here, then there is a grammatical mistake in the sentence. If red colour is meant to mean all the different types of red, then because colour, in the sense of different shades, is usually countable, we would use a plural noun:

• red colours

If we are describing a particular shade of a person's skin after they were in the sun too long, for example we would say they were:

• a red colour

Because we are using a singular noun to reflect a specific example of a colour, we need to use a determiner. (Singular countable nouns must usually occur with a determiner. A determiner is a word like: a, the, this, my, his).

To sum up

In the Original Poster's example colour is not plural and does not have a determiner. It seems likely that the speaker hates the phenomenon 'red'. It seems unlikely for instance that they like colour - as opposed to greyness - but that they don't like red colour. The best description would therefore be that:

• They don't like red!

Answer 6

I'll add that in omitting the definite article (the), you are effectively making the object that follows red uncountable*:

The red car

The definite article makes car a countable noun; there is only one car.

Red cars

There is no definite article here, so cars is uncountable; we are talking about cars that happen to be the color red.

*Since you're talking about all red cars, cars is a countable noun, but we omit the article because we mean all cars, and not a particular number of cars.

I like red car

is ungrammatical because you have no definite article, and you mean all red cars, so car should be plural.

I like the red car

is grammatical because you have the definite article the, making car a countable noun, and therefore it should be singular.

I believe countability of car to be the root cause of the 'unnaturalness' of the phrase. Here's some further reading.

Answer 7

Yes, when used in that way, colour calls for an article. It would be grammatically correct if you added one.

Definite article:

If you were looking at some different colours including a red colour for which you didn't have a specfic name, it would be perfectly correct to say "I hate the red colour" or "I hate that red colour"

Indefinite article:

If you were describing a colour that you hated, you could say "I hate a red colour"

Otherwise the phrase can be modified to use "red colour" as an adjective: "I hate red coloured (something)"

Answer 8

The apparent intent of the first statement:

I hate red color

is to express hatred of red (all reds, of any tint or shade, everywhere), which is the sentence object and a noun in that context, and use "color" as a qualifying noun, i.e. "I hate red, and red is a colour". Basically a noun in place of an adjective, describing the nature of the object.

The absence of definite articles in Russian leads to confusion about the situations where one would need them and where one wouldn't. In this case though, a definite article is not required, but the word "color" is either redundant or insufficient to provide clarity of intent. It's redundant as Red is universally recognised as a colour. If the context absolutely requires a qualification, it would need to have more than just the noun to be a properly structured component of the main clause or a properly constructed auxiliary clause. Examples would be:

I hate Red as a colour

or

I hate Red - the colour, not the character in Fraggle Rock

As mentioned in other answers , you can change the word order :

I hate the colour red

making "the colour red" a proper name comprised of a common noun (colour) and a proper noun (red). The complete proper name is thus the object of the sentence. Proper names can often require a definite article in both the singular and the plural, e.g. "The Crazy 88".

You could also have:

I hate the red colour (on that car)

making "red" an adjective and "colour" the object. In that case though you would need to use the definite article as we are talking about a singular object. Moving to the plural removes the need for the definite article, but requires that we explicitly pluralise the object:

I hate red colours

(which again implies all red tints and shades everywhere).

Answer 9

An item in the class Colors (i.e. "color") lacks the attribute "color". Thus, there is no place to attach a particular color (e.g. red) to "color".

Those items do have a "name" attribute, however.

Answer 10

To be clear, although there are rules in the English language regarding grammar and proper English, as with most everything, this matter is completely affected by a person's perception. Even rules are affected by perception. The reason why this is important is that there are more than just two dialects of the English language, and not every dialect will agree upon the same rules. This is why there are dialects of most languages in the first place. Someone thought it sounded good, used it, and after enough people used it regularly, it became a dialect, regardless if it is official or not.

I may feel that it is not correct, but another dialect may say different. A lot of the answers here mix up the rules of grammar and do not particularly stay aligned with the sentence in question, as stated by Mari-Lou A. Yes, it is important to have a "rule" or standard (both mean the same in this case) that can be applied along a range of sentences. That is what makes it a rule or standard, but when you compare adjectives versus nouns and say that one is more correct than the other, you lean away from the original question by saying that something does not function properly, but rather than defining your reasons with semantics, you demonstrate it with another example that utilizes different semantics, which explains why someone else perceives that reason as incorrect. You may be able to reason an example of complete difference logically, but if the semantics differ too much, then it is difficult to understand the relation, and even more difficult to follow that logic to the point of agreeance.

This does help to deduce the answer, but I feel that the answer is quite obvious. It's a matter of opinion, based on the audience in which it is meant for. If you want all native English speakers to believe it is proper and correct, then you have your work cut out for you, but if you're just looking for a majority's acceptance, then stick to saying "I hate the color red".

The point is to understand what makes a complete sentence, and thereby you are able to deduce the acceptable answer here. A complete noun and verb make a complete sentence, and this is generally the most acceptable way to convey proper, acceptable English.

"I hate red color." - Granted, a native English speaker would most likely say that the words "red" and "color" are switched around, but that does not mean it is grammatically incorrect, although it would be missing an article if that was the case, hence making it, in fact, grammatically incorrect. To be precise, it isn't standard (there is a difference between what is standard and what is grammatically correct), and because it isn't standard, nearly all native English speakers would correct you by saying it is switched around.

To further my point - It is proper to say, "I hate the color red" rather than "I hate red color", specifically, because of the order of the nouns. In the version I presented, "the color red", "color" is a noun used as an adjective describing the noun "red". If you say, "I hate the red color", you are still using a noun as adjective "red" to describe the noun "color". Either way, depending on the context it is used in, you can also be stating a compound noun, because the latter noun "color" or "red" isn't necessary in that case, but this sentence on its own does not convey a complete thought, because it is implied that you are meaning the color of something that isn't stated in that sentence. In other words, if you say, "I hate the red [color]", it is obvious that there is more to this thought that isn't stated.

As Casey LeClair said when saying "I hate the color red", you aren't specifying its medium or location in relation to a shade of red. Therefore, it would be accepted as hating only red generally. But as JohnGH said, it calls for an article in this case, because the subject is singular, while depending on the plural, it is not always necessary to add an article. This is the generally accepted rule.

I agree that when saying "red color", red is an adjective, but can be a noun in a compound noun of "red color", because as said by moonring and J.R., it depends on the context, and there are exceptions to rules.

The basis of the answer here is that it depends. It depends on the person perceiving the statement. Honestly, you might never know which to use, so use your better judgment and sound it out both ways. Native or non-native, either way can go. This doesn't mean always, but don't take it for granted. Grammar nazis are everywhere.