Adjective, verb or noun?

One of the clear differences between English and Spanish is how adjectives and adjectival phrases (i.e. describing words and phrases) are used in the two languages. Everyday adjectives are fine:

A red car = un coche rojo

Well, fine except for the word order anyway. That's for another day.

Having spent a lifetime speaking English, however, I've become used to being able to use just about any word - including nouns and verbs - to describe things. For instance, as well as a red car, we might have:

A luxury car = un coche de lujo

or perhaps

A racing car = un coche de carreras


Note that luxury is a noun, not an adjective.  And racing is a verb (used here in the gerund form, el gerundio in Spanish).

This makes English a very flexible language - you almost make it up as you go along! In fact, some items in English are practically always described using this sort of structure:

A walking stick = un bastón
A swimming pool = una piscina
A football pitch = un campo de fútbol
A pocket knife = una navaja
A beach ball = un balón de playa

.... there are many more, I'm sure you can come up with a whole list.

So remember that, when speaking Spanish, unless you use an 'ordinary' adjective you'll probably need to use the ... de ... construction.  And for Spanish speakers learning English, why not try to find as many examples of this as you can, or invent some of your own and see if you are understood by your English-speaking colleagues, friends or teachers?