blue/green used to be the same concept but that time has past, and now they are different.
Some words aren’t on the new system yet and you’ll see things with the “blue” word which are green. But that’s just because they are still on the old system. E.g. “blue vegetables” “blue youth” and such
It’s totally fine to ask on reddit, but for this topic you can get a lot more info from google-sensei
The dividing line between green and blue is, on average, different from the one between 緑 and 青 but if that much precision matters then people use more precise color terms instead. It’s still quite common to talk about 青い信号 or 青い meaning “unripe.” Otherwise 青 lines up very well with “blue.”
It’s not confusing at all inside the language and even from the outside it’s rarely an issue. You should get used to concepts having a larger, smaller, or just different scope – this won’t be the last time you see it.
kanji aren’t words, be careful
the noun for blue is あお＝青 one kanji and nothing else, but kanji themselves are not words, and there are both adjectives for blue あおい＝青い that have more than just kanji, and there are words for green that differ from blue, i.e. みどり＝緑
the character 青 happens to be used in some spellings of words that have a green meaning because there once was no word みどり and あお referred to both the color of leaves and the sky and the ocean, but they diverged over time, though the spelling for old words remains from previous eras. you have to memorize the situations where one is used over the other, like the “green” signal at a stop light is still 青い
4 comments
緑 [みどり] = green
青 [あお] = blue
blue/green used to be the same concept but that time has past, and now they are different.
Some words aren’t on the new system yet and you’ll see things with the “blue” word which are green. But that’s just because they are still on the old system. E.g. “blue vegetables” “blue youth” and such
It’s totally fine to ask on reddit, but for this topic you can get a lot more info from google-sensei
The dividing line between green and blue is, on average, different from the one between 緑 and 青 but if that much precision matters then people use more precise color terms instead. It’s still quite common to talk about 青い信号 or 青い meaning “unripe.” Otherwise 青 lines up very well with “blue.”
It’s not confusing at all inside the language and even from the outside it’s rarely an issue. You should get used to concepts having a larger, smaller, or just different scope – this won’t be the last time you see it.
kanji aren’t words, be careful
the noun for blue is あお＝青 one kanji and nothing else, but kanji themselves are not words, and there are both adjectives for blue あおい＝青い that have more than just kanji, and there are words for green that differ from blue, i.e. みどり＝緑
the character 青 happens to be used in some spellings of words that have a green meaning because there once was no word みどり and あお referred to both the color of leaves and the sky and the ocean, but they diverged over time, though the spelling for old words remains from previous eras. you have to memorize the situations where one is used over the other, like the “green” signal at a stop light is still 青い
And I own a pen made by Pentel that is グリーン.