"Il tuo ombrello è viola."

[Hornstein]

Some of the colors follow gender but not verde and not viola and not arancione

[marziotta]

Replied to it in a question of yours... and updated my Italian FAQ, #15 http://duolingo.com/#/comment/233855

[AhmedOrban]

I thought verde follows the rule because I google translated Verdi and it said green as in plural green

[sharkbbb]

Colors ending in -o follow the general rules (-o,-a,-i,-e):

• azzurro
• bianco
• colorato
• giallo
• grigio
• nero
• rosso

Colors ending in -e use the same form for both masculine and feminie, but have a different form for all plurals, ending in -i:

• arancione
• celeste
• marrone
• turchese
• verde

Colors ending in -a or -u do not change at all and work for all gender and number combinations:

• blu
• fucsia
• porpora
• rosa
• viola

[AhmedOrban]

THANK YOU!

[CodeVisio]

Wrong pronunciation of "viola"

"viola" could mean a color or the third person of the present tense of the verb "violare".

How to distinguish?

"vìola", the stress is on the i == it means the verb
"viòla", the stress is on the o (opened sound) == color

[jarinhumphrey]

Thank you, that was helpful!

[hummingbirding]

I remember this because 'violet' is a shade of purple, but when I tried to google 'violet in italian' to see if they have a separate word for it, it gave me the same 'viola' answer.
Any difference between purple and violet in Italian?

[patriciovalenz]

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dUjss2kiKX8/UHhjwAytDHI/AAAAAAAAAmE/0-_GUCu3MMc/s1600/colori.jpg

Check this out, maybe it helps you :)

[hummingbirding]

That does help, thank you!

[patriciovalenz]

:D

[rose.rosaa]

thanx

[tebo33unm]

it made it especially difficult to decipher when the pronunciation sounded like "violub"

[zziz1987]

why viola? not violo

[Artemis.lyl]

Viola is the flower. Viola the flower is a feminine noun. It doesn't make sense to change the name and gender of the flower when you use it to describe a colour.

[frataglia]

Because this adjective doesn't change, so you say " un fiore viola" (masculin singular), "due fiori viola" (masculin plural), "una penna viola" (feminine singular) and "due penne viola" (feminine plural).

It's the same, for example, for the colours rosa, blu, arancio :)

[RubbishZ]

Violet should be perfectly acceptable

[Zuzics]

Off topic: "viola" sounds so pretty and poetic.

[wildflamer17]

It's better than the white one ^^

[Mateel]

if the umbrella is masculine why must we write viola instead of violo

[Popcornpop89]

for some colours the gender doesn't change when being applied as an adjective. i think because they come from other words, such as, in this case, a flower, same with "rosa"

[Faranman]

Isn't parasol also umbrella

[ErinAldrich]

Parasols bock the sun, umbrellas block the rain.

[cecilar]

purple rain