# vaalea (color of a car)



## Gavril

Hyvää viikonalkua,

I'm not sure what color the word "vaalea" is referring to in this context (from today's Uusi Suomi):



> än pakeni paikalta Korson suuntaan vaalealla, farmarimallisella autolla, joka oli ollut pysäköitynä rakennuksen päädyssä sijaitsevalla pysäköintialueella.




"He fled in the direction of Korso in a [light-colored?] station wagon, which had been parked in the lot at the end of the building."

In describing a person's hair color, _vaalea_ normally means "blond", but is there a color that _vaalea _would normally be understood to refer to in other contexts?

Kiitos


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## Katogato

To the best of my knowledge, it would in fact mean just a "light colored" car; perhaps tan or off-white.


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## Gavril

Katogato said:


> To the best of my knowledge, it would in fact mean just a "light colored" car;



But there are a lot of "light" colors a car could be. If I was being told to look out for a getaway car (as in the context of this article), the term _light-colored_ would be of limited help, unless there was a default color that I could assume "light" was referring to.

Do you normally understand tan / off-white as the color referred to by "light"?


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## Katogato

Personally, yes, but with a few qualifiers. That is just what came to my mind, but it could be different for another person. For me, a 'light' color means one that is very pale or faded out, and very few red, blue, or green cars meet this criteria; they are usually a bold shade. Some pink or yellow cars, but fairly few, are also pale.


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## Spongiformi

Gavril said:


> But there are a lot of "light" colors a car could be. If I was being told to look out for a getaway car (as in the context of this article), the term _light-colored_ would be of limited help, unless there was a default color that I could assume "light" was referring to.



Though your quote doesn't reveal it, but if we assume poor lighting conditions or nobody really paid attention during the incident, light or dark-coloured could be all you can get out of witnesses. As such it doesn't really mean anything more in Finnish than it does in English. So, I reckon it's a description born due to lack of knowledge, not by first choice.


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