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In the following sentence over Doulingo French course:
Les couleurs du drapeau américain sont rouge, blanc et bleu.
The subject of this sentence is les couleurs, which is a feminine plural noun.
However, it takes rouge, blanc, et bleu on the predicate, which is a masculine single.
Why does it take the masculine single and not the feminine plural form? So far, all the sentences I read use the same gender/number pair as its subject...
Because rouge, blanc et bleu sont les couleurs du drapeau américain...
There is just one red, one white and one blue and they are substantives here.
Les couleurs sont au nombre de trois, le rouge, le blanc et le bleu. (three masculine nouns)
There is agreement when bleu or blanc are adjectives :
La couleur bleue du drapeau américain semble un peu plus foncée que celle du drapeau français.
La couleur blanche de cette maison est typique de la région.
but not when they are themselves qualified by another adjective or a noun:
La couleur bleu nuit de la tapisserie.
La couleur blanc cassé de cette robe.
The point to understand is that here you are not dealing with the colour adjectives but with the nouns of the colours, and that the indefinite article that is usually necessary (le rouge, le blanc, le bleu), is missing ; common nouns in French take the definite article and are not zero article nouns (as in English (red, white, blue)) ; it remains to know why they are missing.
The reason is that an enumeration is being made and it is often possible, as in English, to dispense with the articles in enumerations. Examples such as the following abound.
Note that you could also write the sentence as follows ;
- Les couleurs du drapeau américain sont le rouge, le blanc et le bleu.
This could be deemed a preferable style (see @ Stéphane Gimenez 's comment).
