A red car
A cold beer
A long journey
Generally speaking, in Spanish we would place the adjectives after the noun being described:
Un coche rojo
Una cerveza fría
Un viaje largo
An exception is found in the group of words that express objective qualities such as quantity or order, such as más (more), mucho(s)(much/many), poco(s) (little/few), numbers (uno, dos, tres ...), primero (first), último (last) etc. In Spanish these are placed before the noun:
Muchos hombres
Cinco casas
Where both types of adjective are used, they can be placed both before and after the noun, as appropriate:
Diez camisas azules
Más agua caliente
There are some adjectives that can be used either before or after the noun being described and whose placement changes the meaning of the adjective. Perhaps the most common ones in everyday Spanish usage are viejo, pobre, grande, nuevo and propio:
Mi viejo amigo (my long-time friend); mi amigo viejo (my elderly friend)
La pobre chica (the poor - unfortunate - girl); la chica pobre (the poor - financially - girl)
Un gran jugador (a great player); un jugador grande (a large player)
Tu nuevo coche (your new - to you - car); tu coche nuevo (your brand new car)
Mis propias herramientas (my own tools); las herramientas propias (the appropriate tools)
Note that grande, when used before the noun, was shortened to gran - this is known as apocopation, which we'll look at in another post.
