nouns and adjective order
At times I have trouble with word order in spanish. For instance blue sky is cielo azul.The noun and adjective are in different order. Is this always true or are there exceptions. For example is pretty name nombre bonita or bad word palabras malas.
2 Answers
The phrase "cielo azul" is very basic structure and a good way to start learning Spanish, but this type of construction can be quite limiting. Rather than "exceptions" to a rule for this kind of word order, which I have never heard of, it should be best thought of as other word orders such as emphasis and multi adjectives, and sometimes words with different meanings determined by their position in a sentence.
"Un nombre bonito" emphasizes "bonito." "Un bonito nombre" emphasizes "nombre." "Que tengas un bonito día" emphasizes "day." "Que tengas un día bonito" emphasizes the quality of the day that you are wishing for someone. Sometimes the subtlety is stronger in some phrases than others. "Mi viejo amigo" ("my old friend" as in length of friendship) or "mi amigo viejo" possibly the same or meaning "my friend who is old," so context is very important.
In English, mutil adjectives are very simple, but in Spanish this can be problematic, so they must be positioned accordingly, ie: "The beautiful young woman" is best worded in Spanish as "La bella mujer joven." However in this particular case "La bella joven" is sufficient because the article tells us that we are talking about a woman, so "mujer" is not necessary unless desired for nuance. "The broken antique car" would be "el antiguo coche descompuesto." In this case, there is just one available word order. To put "descompusto" in front of "coche" would sound bizzare, so sometimes we have to simply remember which adjective can be used in only one word order.
Another memorization thing is knowing various meanings of the same word to determine its word order in a sentence, ie "el mal hombre" (the bad man), "el hombre malo" (the evil man). In the case "malas palabras," it´s a simple meaning - "bad words," but "palabras malas" could mean the same or "evil words," so here context here is very important as well.
After all the book learning, the easiest way to remember these variations is to expose yourself as much as possible to the language.
Have a look here jeff123 from the King of Grammar
An example:
Un amigo viejo = an old friend (friend who is old)
Un viejo amigo = an old friend (we've been friends for a long time)
