Adjectives in Spanish are not usually strung together as in English, but are instead separated by "y."

See the following discussion, for example.

<http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php't=680352>

Hi Tad
In the link given by James they use "y" between adjectives, however, if there are more than two, say three, they appear to only use one "y", example

Es un hombre gordo, bajo y calvo. (a short, fat, bald man)

Good point, Eddy. Thanks.

I only saw it through your web link.

Does that apply still with the possessive stuff at the end (I'm assuming the sentence will finish 'de Ben')?
La casa caliente, roja y pequeña de Ben.
Well another point I'm getting at is that in English 'Ben's little red house' sounds OK whereas 'Ben's red little house' doesn't (I don't know why this is)

Who's going to have a go at 'donkey-wheel' (what I mean is one of those wheels that a donkey would push round all day to do whatever it is that donkey wheels do).

If donkey-wheel is 'rueda de burro' it becomes more difficult to work out what to put where -if you see what I mean.

Thank's for the link James I haven't had a look yet -so sorry if all this is in it.

I think you'll have better replies if you give some specific example sentences that you want translated, and ones that don't include difficult concepts such as donkey-wheel. I understand exactly what you are asking about here, but it's a broad topic, so it will help if you narrow the focus.

As for "little red" versus "red little," that is just a convention in English. Just as we say "black and white" but not "white and black." Little and big always come first (little old lady, little black book, big bad wolf, big red barn, etc.). A native would have to tell you whether such a convention applies in Spanish.

Thanks James, I started formulating a more lengthy reply and got bogged down -what is it I'm asking?

Re double nouns I guess it's the same, some can be hyphenated, others not.

The frozen donkey-wheel

I'm going to opt for 'La rueda-burro helada' and see if any hispanohablantes complain (it sounds weird and funny in English after all).
I have seen radio-reloj and manico-depresiva however there is also 'el año luz' (light year) and 'el hombre rana' (frogman)

adjectives with possessives

'de' is used with 'los sombreros de mujer' (women's hats) so a specific difficulty would be translating:

He threw out Montze's large, red, floppy, women's hats.

He threw out Montze's large, red, floppy, women's hats.

Good question. I'm not sure myself, but I'll give it my best shot and let the natives fix it.

Tiró los sombreros de mujer que tenía Montze, los cuales eran grandes y rojos y tenían alas grandes.

As you can see, I don't think there is a way to string the words together as we do in English. But maybe I'm wrong. Anyway, this will bump the thread to the top of the list.

Dunia? Vernic? Lazarus? ¿Dónde están'

Creo que se refiere a cosas cotidianas, como dónde comprar las necesidades, cómo abrir una cuenta de cheques, cómo pagar las cuentas, etcetera. Pero puede ser otra cosa, algo que se trata más de la ley. Siento no estar seguro.

He he, thanks James. I suppose in English it's too much of a list anyway and would probably be phrased more like 'He threw out Montze's collection of large, red, floppy hats'

Regarding the other question I don't really know the rules for hyphenation in English -so why worry about Spanish hyphenation'!

I remember learning the rules for the position of the adjectives in English (more complex than what you just described), and how bizarre they seemed to me. As far as I know, there is no such rule in Spanish, although some adjectives can only be used either before or after the noun.