The article raises the issue of the linguodidactic potential of coloratives (color denoting words) based on the analysis of M. Prishvin’s tale-story “The Carvel Thicket”. We suggest that any analysis of a literary work involves the study of emotional, psychological, aesthetic and linguodidactic functions of the language used by the author. It helps to show the writer’s world view and the world seen through the eyes of the characters, and to convey the atmosphere of the epoch, scene and events. At the same time, each color, while having its own national and cultural symbolic meaning, has an individual artistic interpretation, thus a special linguocultural comment is required. This Prishvin’s work includes examples of the color semantics extension of the colorative yellow enhancing its meaning. This color, in contrast to ‘red’ and ‘green’, which are used to describe the living pine forest causing admiration, symbolizes the loss of this earthly beauty at the end of the story. “The yellow mass of the round forest”, “skinned yellow whips”, “the dead ones” – in this way M. Prishvin describes the forest emphasizing this color polarity. The article pays special attention to the linguadidactic potential of coloratives: by using the linguistic analysis of coloratives we can develop speech skills formation and international students’ figurative and aesthetic thinking in the course of Russian language learning and reading Russian literature.