English Colors in Japanese Katakana

The Japanese language usually loans English words into its lexicon through katakanization, the use of the katakana カタカナ to write foreign words in a way the Japanese people can pronounce it, and with colors, that 's no different.

For example, even though kuro 黒 is already the Japanese word for the color "black," the word burakku ブラック, "black" loaned from English, is also frequently used. This is despite both words meaning literally the same color.

Some loaned words for the colors are specially popular, sometimes being used with even more frequency than their original Japanese counterparts. That's the case with pinku ピンク, which is more common in Japanese than momoiro 桃色, the same color.