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Rachel
Why do you say, "nuevos libros" instead of "libros nuevos?" I learned that you place the adjective after the nouns when conversing in Spanish, so why, in this case, is it the opposite? ¡Gracias!
7 jul. 2016 19:44
Antwoorden · 7
3
This is similar to your question about a new bakery — una nueva panadería. The exact meaning of “nuevo” changes a bit based on whether it comes before or after the noun. In general, such adjectives have their literal meaning after a noun, and a more figurative meaning before a noun. I’ll give you a very obvious case, and then you can extrapolate: un carro nuevo = a car that was recently manufactured, and not yet sold to the consumer. un nuevo carro a car that is new to the current owner. Ejemplo: Tengo un nuevo carro. O sea, la verdad es que no es un carro nuevo, sino es de ocasión. un viejo amigo a friend that you’ve known for a long time. un amigo viejo a friend who has been alive for long time. Un nuevo amigo viejo. A “new old friend,” i.e., a senior citizen who has recently become your friend. Una gran persona A great person. Una persona grande A big (large) person. Pobre niña rica “Poor little rich girl” (the title of a Mexican soap opera from ten year ago). “Poor” is meant figuratively.
7 juli 2016
2
Yes, it minds! Un libro nuevo: A brand new book. Un nuevo libro: A new book (despite if it's an old book: it's new for me because I didn't have it or read it before)
8 juli 2016
1
Well I think that the expressions are used in different ways for example the first one can be used like this: Tengo nuevos libros, and the other one like this: Dame los libros nuevos, you know what I mean? The first one its like another word el nuevo celular, el nuevo alumno, etc. and the other one its like a description el celular nuevo, el carro nuevo, etc. I hope that you can understand this.
7 juli 2016
Hi, in spanish we have something called "hipérbaton" is a literary figure that allows you to change the Logic structure of a sentence, so there's no difference in meaning if you say nuevos libros o libros nuevos, is the same, for example if you have a sentence like yo compré un carro nuevo, is the same if i say:un carro nuevo yo compré, o un nuevo carro yo compré o yo compré un nuevo carro, yo un carro nuevo compré etc.all this sentences have the same meaning you're just changing the order of the phrase, i don't know if you have seen star wars in spanish because there yoda uses a los the hipérbaton to change the order of how he speaks is a good example.
11 juli 2016
Gracias, todo el mundo. This was very helpful.
10 juli 2016
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