Attn: Spanish Speakers (which Sentence Is Correct?) fsastraps insists that he is correct, but i know im right

[snlildude87 0]

Okay, today (05.05.05) on the shoutbox, I shouted a sentence, and then fsastraps said that I was wrong. At first, I thought it was because the adjective did not agree with it's noun in gender, but he told me that it was another issue.

 

Sentence:

Where is the new forum?

My translation:

?D?nde est? el forum nuevo?

I know there are a few miscellaneous errors in there such as the lack of accent marks and the use of a fake word ("forum"), but those don't matter.

 

fsastraps' translation:

??D?nde est? el nuevo forum?

Now, what I want to know is, do adjectives in Spanish come after or before the noun that they are modifying? In my sentence, the adjective new ("nuevo") comes after the noun that it is modifying ("forum"). This makes sense because I remember telling myself in Spanish I (I'm in Spanish 3 now) that Spanish is similar to Vietnamese, which I speak, adjective-wise because the adjectives come after the noun that they are modifying. However, there is an exception to this:

Mi casa esta cerca de tu casa

As you can see, the adjective "mi" ("my") comes before the noun that it's modifying, house ("casa"), but this happens because "mi" is a possessive pronoun.

 

Anyways, please do not reply to this thread if you have no idea what the word Spanish means, or you have never spoke it in your life. I want serious answers only, and I will close this thread once someone experienced tells me that I'm right.

 

Edit: Added accent marks to make some people comfortable...

Edited May 7, 2005 by snlildude87 (see edit history)

[fsastraps 0]

Hey snlildude, you know I was born in mexico, and spanish is my First language, yeah i understad the fact theat Most of the times the adjective will go after the noun, but i've got another sentece for you in which the adjective comes before the noun, "el rojo caparazon" translated to english this would be "the red shell". I mean i understand that the rule applies most of the times, but thre are allways special cases and by saying "Donde esta el nuevo forum " is one of those, and it makes more sense that way, than by saying, "Donde esta el forum nuevo".

[beeseven 0]

I was always taught that adjectives aside from numeric and good/bad went after the noun. Also, if we're assuming an accent, you conjugated estar wrong. "Where is the new forum?" I would translate to "?D?nde est? el foro nuevo?" (but I'm not sure about "foro" for "forum"- I just babelfished that)

Notice from snlildude87:

Changed "Donde" to "D?nde"

Edited May 6, 2005 by snlildude87 (see edit history)

[snlildude87 0]

I was always taught that adjectives aside from numeric and good/bad went after the noun. Also, if we're assuming an accent, you conjugated estar wrong. "Where is the new forum?" I would translate to "?Donde est? el foro nuevo?" (but I'm not sure about "foro" for "forum"- I just babelfished that)

138618[/snapback]

One person agrees with me. Yay.

 

I did not conjugate estar wrong because I mentioned that I did not put the accent marks on some of the verbs (I don't know the ASCII numeric value for the accents, and I accidently deleted my Microsoft Character Map ).

 

Thanks for your reply.

 

Edit: Fixed my grammar.

Edited May 6, 2005 by snlildude87 (see edit history)

[clagnol 0]

Fsastraps is right. The adjective's position definitely depends on the adjective and the context of the situation. For instance:El hombre grandeand El grande hombre...mean respectively "the great man" and "the large man" (unless it's the other way around).I once learned a rule for determining the position of the adjective, but I have since forgotten it.However, in my French studies, we were taught the acronym B.A.G.S. which stands for:BeautyAgeGoodnessSizeIf any French adjective pertains to these attributes, they go before the noun, and if not, they go after. Because Spanish and French are so similar, I would assume this rule generally applies for Spanish as well.So, because "grande" in one of the above senses refers to size, it would go before and imply "large". I may be wrong... Fsastraps, does that sound right to you?

[fsastraps 0]

clagnol, that sounds perfectly right to me, because i took a french class and a spanish class the semester after (spanish 6 and french 1, just for the record), and we talked about B.A.G.S. two. It is a true rule.and now that you mention it, i can definately proove my point right snlildude87. Because infact french and spanish are very similar languages.And it does make more sense by saying ??Donde estas el nuevo forum? It is one of those times in which it depends on the situation that you are using the sentece for, and clagnol explained it perfectly with his example.

[snlildude87 0]

I'll ask my Spanish teacher about it tomorrow....

[fsastraps 0]

well was your spanish teacher born in the US or is she from latin america?

[beeseven 0]

Actually when you use "grande" before a singular masculine word it gets shortened to "gran" but that doesn't really matter right now.When you conjugated estar to "est?s" (giving you the benefit of the accent, there) it means "you are." "Est?" would be "it is." You wouldn't say "Where are you the new forum?"

[snlildude87 0]

well was your spanish teacher born in the US or is she from latin america?

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Spanish teachers. I believe one of them was born in Latin America, but two of them were born in the US, but all three have masters degree in the field.

 

By the way, I did not get a chance to ask them today because we had a Spanish writing final.

 

 

When you conjugated estar to "est?s" (giving you the benefit of the accent, there) it means "you are." "Est?" would be "it is." You wouldn't say "Where are you the new forum?"

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beeseven, I did not write "est?s", but I wrote "esta", and I specifically said that I did not put the accent marks in any of the words that needed accent marks. So, "esta" (which is what I have) should be "est?". Just to repeat, I did not put accent marks on any of the words that needed accent marks, but just to appease you, I'll do it right now.

[marionfanss 0]

I thought I had to reply here since I'm from Argentina (South America). I think it depends on the context. Sometimes we use the adjetive before the verb to make it sound more "poetic" (did I spell that right?). Let's see... You can say "Her long hair" in both ways: "Su largo cabello" and "Su cabello largo" and be right both of the times. But "Su largo cabello" sounds more like something you would write or say formally than the way you talk with your friends. The second one sounds more... bold. Or let's see: "The beautiful sunset" could be both "El bello atardecer" and "El atardecer bello" but the second one sounds rough. I don't really know which one is gramatically correct or if they're both correct, but here we use both. Maybe in real Spanish (cuz in Latin American countries, the spanish is a bit different than the spanish from Spain) it is another way.Hope I helped hehe. Oh and about the "?D?nde est? el nuevo foro?" and "?D?nde est? el foro nuevo?", I would use the second one. I don't know, the first one doesn't sound right. But after what I said before, both of them would be right in my opinion.And about what you said about "Mi casa" or something like that, the rule goes different for possesive adjetives, especially "mi". But you can still say "Nuestra casa" and "La casa nuestra". I think it depends on if you use an... I don't know how to call it in English, but in spanish it is called art?culo. Those are La, El, Los, Las...

[clagnol 0]

We use the cognate, "article", in English, marionfanss.

[Danieluchis 0]

yes, i totally agree with marionfanss im from m?xico and spanish is my mother language, so "?D?nde est? el forum nuevo?" and "?D?nde est? el nuevo forum?" are just the same thing, it's correct in both ways because they don't deform the significance (lol does that word exists? i think so..) of the sentence. So, in both ways i understand that you are asking where is the new forum.

[DYABLO 0]

just to let you guys know "forum" translated to english is "foro" with the accent in the "o" i just dont know to do that

[Albus Dumbledore 0]

Actually when you use "grande" before a singular masculine word it gets shortened to "gran" but that doesn't really matter right now.

 

When you conjugated estar to "estás" (giving you the benefit of the accent, there) it means "you are." "Está" would be "it is." You wouldn't say "Where are you the new forum?"

138940[/snapback]

call me stupif but doesn't Esta mean he/she is.. or maybe it is just another way of saying he/she is....lol