Gerund as adjective
I know this works in English from time to time, e.g. "Mixed grades were in store for the struggling student". Things like that. Can that even be translated to Spanish? If so, how?
5 Answers
This may be too much info but in case it's helpful something I've found a little confusing is the false cognate of gerund and gerundio so I'll post this link too just in case others have the same confusion. Difference between gerunds and gerundios In essence I believe that gerundios (ando and iendo words) are closest to the english present participles and can act as an adverb or occasionally like an adjective but they are unlike our gerunds (-ing words) because they can never be used as nouns (instead the infinitives do this ).
But to your question this may help 
Past Participles used to form adjectives
Forming adjectives: As in English, many past participles can be used as adjectives. As adjectives, they agree with the nouns they describe in both number and gender; plurals have an s added, and in the feminine form the final o is changed to a. Because of differences in which participles can be used as adjectives, the Spanish participles can't always be translated directly to English as an adjective.
Examples: Hay tres personas heridas. (There are three wounded people.) La oficina tiene dos puertas abiertas. (The office has two open doors.) Estamos cansados. (We're tired.) Compré la casa renovada. (I bought the renovated house.) Los viajeros llegados fueron al restaurante. (The passengers who had arrived went to the restaurant.)
As Kiwi said, in Spanish gerunds can be used as adverbs, and participles can be used as adjectives. Then "struggling student" could be something akin to "estudiante esforzado".
I'm not sure so would wait for a native but my attempt would be:
Deparaban grados mezclados para el estudiante agobiante.
So how would that sentence translate, then?
I asked a similar question a while ago and got very good answers. Here's the link link text
