As a German living in the US I'm sometimes uncertain how to properly distinguish between the German colors "rosa" and "pink". German "pink" is probably a little bit brighter than American "pink". The "rosa" is a very soft pink. The best translation for "rosa" is probably "rose-colored". However, it always feels off to me. In German "rosa" is a very common color whereas "rose-colored" is more of a comparison than a real color name. I mean even "periwinkle" has its own proper word. We don't call it "smurf-colored". It always makes me feel like I'm missing a very important color word. It's probably the only part of the English language that still makes me feel very uncertain and like I'm missing some fundamental word.

Edit: so I just had a discussion with my American wife about it and according to her "Rosa" is pink and German "pink" is hot pink. Now I think what might make this confusing to me might just be the different meanings of the same word "pink". Solved.

It sounds like you're describing magenta. It's a more saturated pink.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magenta

> Weirdly, English doesn't seem to have any problem with red and pink; you'd almost expect it to use "red" and "light red".

I recall a throwaway joke in the Borderlands presequel, involving a particle effect a designer wants to be 'light red' but 'NOT PINK'. Which it turns out is a reference I didn't catch about from ye olde RvB: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgi_YPxE5Kk

Pink is the name of a flowering plant. It was adopted as a color name the same as with orange.