When does an adjective go in front of a noun?

Question

Hi. I'm not so sure as to when to place an adjective in front of a noun. I know that certain adjectives that indicate quantity go in front of a noun such as poca gente and also those adjectives that exhibit inherent quality such as alta montaña, but is there a set rule to follow when placing an adjective in front of a noun? Thanks.

• Please use correct spelling. - Eddy Oct 21, 2009

Answer 1

You put the adjective before the noun when it's not meant to be used literally. For example:

• Mi mejor amigo - My best friend, which actually means "my closest friend"
• Mi amigo mejor - My friend who is the best. It's restricted to its literal interpretation.

The former is correct.

Answer 2

There's not a clear rule for this. Most of times, the adjective goes after the noun. You can use also it before the noun, but it's not the most correct way (it sounds too poethic).

Answer 3

I just typed "Spanish adjectives that go before the noun" in Google and got pages of lessons.

The trend: good or badness, order, and modifiers that are articles, like "some:"

For example:

bueno good un buen hombre a good man malo bad un mal hombre a bad man uno one un año one year primero first el primer hijo the first child/son tercero third el tercer coche the third car

And from another site:

medio/a half comes before the noun medio/a average comes after the noun pobre unfortunate comes before the noun pobre poor comes after the noun mismo/a the same comes before the noun mismo/a oneself etc comes after the noun

Buena suerte!!!

• Friendly tip: use the bulleted lists to avoid formatting problems like the one you have here. - Stobber Oct 20, 2009
• Also, it's "buena suerte" ;) - Stobber Oct 20, 2009

Answer 4

For more clarity you can start from Reference

adjective-placement

short-form-adjectives

followed by great answers from our forum

adjectives-before-or-after-the-noun

rule-of-adjectives

when-do-adjectives-precede-the-nouns-in-spanish

For future:

Answers --> search - will give you plenty of resources for many questions