Another question for multi-lingual AHers.

[AG31]

In English, "the green, big truck" sounds wrong, whereas "the big, green truck" sounds OK.

I'm wondering if other languages have this kind of "rule" for adjectives. And if they do, is the order the same? In other words, is it embedded in our humanity?

We have @Kelliezgirl to thank for this insight. She posted this over in the Favorite Statistics thread:

Most native speakers do this intuitively but there is a formal order of adjectives in English.

Opinion (e.g., beautiful, amazing)
Size (e.g., big, small)
Age (e.g., old, young)
Shape (e.g., round, square)
Color (e.g., red, blue)
Origin (e.g., Italian, American)
Material (e.g., wooden, plastic)
Purpose (e.g., cooking, sleeping)

and

It's just the natural structure of the language

Try saying something in the wrong sequence and it will sound wrong to a native speaker.

"A green tiny old spoon"
vs
"A tiny old green spoon."

 

[Jackie.Hikaru]

I feel like this is something you can get a much better answer to by looking it up on language stack exchanges. But while I'm here, I will say that English was not my first language and I distinctly remember learning the order of adjectives in English to be a nightmare, and to this day, even though English has been my primary language for over twenty years, its something I still get wrong all the time (also phrasal verbs).
In Japanese and Korean, adjectives don't stack as they can in English. As far as I know, Spanish is also pretty flexible. At least, I haven't had to learn adjective order for Spanish like I had to for English.

 

[THBGato]

As far as I know, Spanish is also pretty flexible. At least, I haven't had to learn adjective order for Spanish like I had to for English.

Pretty much, though very few Spanish adjectives go in front of the noun - most come after. (Some do both, but change meaning depending on position. Un hombre pobre - a man who is financially poor; Un pobre hombre - a man who is pitiful.)

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Yes, in my language, and the same rule holds. It's unnatural to say a green big truck. Then, there are languages like Italian, where you would say "big truck green." The color always goes after the noun.

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

In french some adjectives come before the noun but most come after. In your example, it would be 'un grand camion vert' - literally 'a big truck green'.

Curiously, if you take the adjectives that come before noun, they follow the same conventions as in English. You would say 'un beau, petit, jeune homme', which is the same opinion -> size -> age order as in English.

 

[THBGato]

Curiously, if you take the adjectives that come before noun, they follow the same conventions as in English. You would say 'un beau, petit, jeune homme', which is the same opinion -> size -> age order as in English.

Seeing as much of English word order rules come from French, that probably where English gets adjectival order from.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

Pretty much, though very few Spanish adjectives go in front of the noun - most come after. (Some do both, but change meaning depending on position. Un hombre pobre - a man who is financially poor; Un pobre hombre - a man who is pitiful.)

This. Using OP's example also has a slight change to the meaning:

• "El gran camión verde" implies some sense of grandeur and/or uniqueness.
• "El camión grande y verde," and "El camión verde y grande" is more simple and descriptive, stating that the truck is big and green. The order doesn't really matter here, but the word "y" (which is "and") should be added, else it sounds quite broken, or that there are more adjectives incoming.

 

[Kasumi_Lee]

In Japanese, you string adjectives together with grammatical particles, although there's no rule regarding which adjectives should go first; but "green" is actually a noun in Japanese, and adjectives always precede nouns, so it would also be "big, green truck" (大きな緑のトラック).

As for Chinese, I instinctively want to translate that as 绿色的大卡车 (literally "green-colored, big truck"), although you could shorten it to 大绿卡车 (now it's literally "big, green truck"). Again, I don't know if there's actually a rule about which adjectives go first.

 

[Kasumi_Lee]

Where's @StillStunned prowling around? I think I remember him posting about being a professional translator.

 

[StillStunned]

Where's @StillStunned prowling around? I think I remember him posting about being a professional translator.

Editor, actually, though mostly for non-native clients.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

German has the same order as English, which is handy, though there's a bit more scope for swapping order to emphasise a difference vs a similarity - so if you're talking about big dogs, then you could say Clifford the red big dog (as opposed to the brown big dog). It's more natural than in English.

But generally it's the same order as English. With one of 54 adjectival endings on each one (luckily half of them are -en, so if you master the couple cases that are -es, you can mumble your way through easily...)

I believe it's the same for other languages which have adjectives, eg Arabic, Russian, just with a greater or lesser degree of flexibility for effect or poetry. But I couldn't say for sure.

 

[JGittes]

In french some adjectives come before the noun but most come after. In your example, it would be 'un grand camion vert' - literally 'a big truck green'.

....

Moulin Rouge
Mardi Gras

 

[Areala-chan]

In Japanese, you string adjectives together with grammatical particles, although there's no rule regarding which adjectives should go first; but "green" is actually a noun in Japanese, and adjectives always precede nouns, so it would also be "big, green truck" (大きな緑のトラック).

Not only that, but not everything that is green is actually called 'green' in Japanese. 'Midori' (green) was added to the lexicon waaaay late, so a lot of things one might assume would be described as 'midori' (traffic signals, apples) are actually described with 'aoi' (blue). 'Aoi' also carries the connotation of 'fresh' or 'new', and is used to indicate someone who is new to an industry or profession, but also describes freshly-harvested vegetables and fruit, and can also just mean 'lightly colored' regardless of an item or place's actual hue. I love the language, but this was one of those things that drove me up the wall until I got over it and realized it's just how they do things. LOL!

 

[TheLobster]

it's just how they do things.

Colors are often different between languages, even if they are always translated the same. For example, English blue is pretty dark; in languages where the analogous word derives from the sky the shade is usually much brighter.