Question regarding a sentence with two adjectives and a single noun

Question

I encountered this sentence while doing software-based Spanish lessons:

"Me gustó la comida hindú picante." (Translation given: "I liked the spicy Indian food". The context is a friend describing one of the things she enjoyed while on vacation in India.)

I haven´t really dealt with multiple adjectives yet in my lessons. But, it is my understanding that, in the case of two adjectives for a single noun, either the adjective can both follow the noun and be separated by "y" (or "e" I guess when appropriate); or, one of the adjecitve may be placed before the noun and the other adjective after the noun.

In this case, it appears to me that there are two adjectives describing the food, "spicy" and "Indian", and that both occur after the noun with no "y" separating them. It has me stumped.

Answer 1

Your understanding is correct, however, there are certain cases, like this one, when one adjective describes the very nature/essence of the noun rather than to describe a variant. No matter what, the food is "comida hindú" and basically cannot be changed, but we can add another adjective that indicates a variant which results in "comida hindú picante".

In this case I would not say "hindú y picante" because these two adjectives have a different effect on the noun "comida." But we can split the adjectives and say Me gustó la picante comida hindú.

(I don´t know if there is any rule as to when we can use double adjectives, ie: after a brand name, nationality, etc, I can only say when we can based on examples).

---

I forgot double adjectives together divided by y / e, ie: Para su trabajo, él compró una nueva camioneta Ford blanca y roja. Both adjectives that have the same effect on the noun are grouped together with y.

Okay, so you´re saying that "comida" and "hindú, though technically a noun and adjective, are serving as as single noun here. Interesting. - Trieltor, Jun 9, 2013

No, I did not say that - 005faa61, Jun 9, 2013

Well alrighty then. - Trieltor, Jun 10, 2013

Answer 2

Me gustó la comida Hindú picante = I liked the hot Indian food.

Me gustó la comida Hindú y picante. i liked the hot and Indian food (does this work in English?)

At least in Spanish, in the first instance it means you like Indian spicy food, whereas in the second one, seems to say that liked the Indian and that it was hot, it might've been not spicy and still you would've liked the Indian food.