⒈color words and its classification
in our daily life people usually use color words to describe their perception of the objective world.in fact, People's real life is closely related to color, and people live in color. Vasily Kandinsky, the founder of modern abstract art, pointed out in his work on the spirit of art that "color affects the spirit directly." In human language, there are a large number of color words. These words are rich in emotional and cultural connotations and the color word affected by different cultural background
Whether in English or in Chinese,generally speaking, color words can be divided into three categories: basic color words, physical color words and compound color words.
(1) basic color word
In English and in Chinese,basic color words are be expressed like this: red (赤),orange (橙), yellow(黄), green(绿，青), blue(蓝),purpse(紫), therefore,in Chinese and English, the basic word correspond basically.
(2) the physical color words Some nouns, used to refer to objects,can describe the color of objects directly.Therefore, this kind of color word is called the physical color it can make the expression more vivid, specific and lifelike. Such as: Ivory (象牙色); chocolate (巧克力色)and so on.
(3)compound color words
When a single color word cannot express its color more accurately, a compound word formation can be used, that is to use two or more than two color words to form new color words,like dark green (墨绿色)etc.
2 translation of color words in A Dream of Red Mansions
Take the dream of Red Mansions translated by Yang Xianyi as a reference, taking the seventeenth chapter as an example. Next, I will discuss the expression of color word in this book, Yang's translation mostly adopts literal translation.
2.1 basic color words
we have known that basic color words correspond basically in English and Chinese language.So it can be translated directly. For example:
宝玉便念到："宝鼎茶闲烟尚绿，幽窗棋罢指犹凉。"
still green the smoke from tea brewed in a raretripod;yet cold the fingers from chess played by quiet window.
we can see "绿" istranslated into green directly to describe the state of smoke.
2.2 entity color words
the entity words means some objects can represent the distinctive color of themselves.in fact，entity color words easily affected by culture background.for example:
宝玉道:"也罢了，也打了一条桃红，再打一条葱绿。"
"All right. Do me one also in peach-pink and another in leak-green."
we can notice that "桃红"and"葱绿"are translated into "peach＋color"and"leak＋color".peach and leak are all objects ，yang uses themselves to describe the distinctive color. And we can clearly see the influence of different cultures.
2.3 compound color words
when a word cannot describe the color accurately, we adapt compound color words.yang's translation represents this point very well. for example:
“绿窗油壁”is translated into "green windows and painted walls".
“青松拂檐”is expressed as "green pines brushed the eaves."
in those expressions，the structure is"a basic color word＋object".in this way，the characteristic of objects can be illustrate accurately.apart from that，there are another example to:
“或如翠带飘飘，或如金绳盘屈，或实若丹砂，或花如金贵，味芬气馥。。”
"some feels like floating green belts or golden hands;others had barries red as cinnabar and flowers like golden. "
And“红香绿玉”改做“怡红快绿”即名曰“怡红院”
crimson fragrance and green jade was changed to happy red and plightful green.（also called happy red court）
this compound color words can be described " adjective＋color".
3.conclusion
although the composition of color words in Chinese and English are similar basically，the meaning of one language materialscan not be fully and perfectly transferred to another language materials.Therefore, the translation of the color word is not only the translation of language, but also the translation of culture.
