Sentences to translate

[laepelba]

I am currently working on exercises with the preterit forms of verbs. The most recent exercise asked me to translate several sentences from English into Spanish. I have a couple of questions about one of them...

Original English: At eight o'clock this morning, the doctor visited his new patient.
My Spanish translation: A las ocho hoy por la mañana, el medico visitó su enfermo nuevo.
The corrected sentence (according to their answers in the back of the book): Esta mañana a las ocho, el medico el doctor visitó su nuevo enfermo.

(Sigh...)
So:
1) The book gave a word/phrase bank that said "this morning" should be "hoy por la mañana". Then, in two of the sentences, they used "esta mañana". It's the same, right?
2) Does it matter if I write "a las ocho" before "esta mañana"? Or does it HAVE to be "esta mañana a las ocho"?
3) medico doctor ... right?
4) Why is nuevo BEFORE enfermo instead of AFTER??

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by laepelba

4) Why is nuevo BEFORE enfermo instead of AFTER??

Nil desperandum. Your other answers might not be wrong, there are usually at least a dozen ways of saying the same thing in Spanish. Meanwhile, the position of adjectives can be critical. My grammar book gives a distinction between nuevo before and after the noun. Before = brand new, After = new, another. But there is overlap, and possibly both are correct.

[laepelba]

Originally Posted by Perikles

Nil desperandum.

Huh???

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by laepelba

Huh???

=Nothing is to be despaired of. = Do not despair.

[laepelba]

Originally Posted by Perikles

=Nothing is to be despaired of. = Do not despair.

Ahhhh..... gotcha!! I'm not despairing. I'm just a perfectionist who likes to have "homework" with no errors at all. I'm the (dumb) kind of person who proofreads every email (every single one) and corrects mistakes and re-words everything........

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by laepelba

I'm just a perfectionist who likes to have "homework" with no errors at all. ...

Perfectionists should concentrate on difficult integrations, and not worry about fluffy things like ser and estar.

[laepelba]

I'm on to the preterit now....

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

Originally Posted by laepelba

Original English: At eight o'clock this morning, the doctor visited his new patient.
My Spanish translation: A las ocho hoy por la mañana, el medico visitó su enfermo nuevo.
The corrected sentence (according to their answers in the back of the book): Esta mañana a las ocho, el medico el doctor visitó a su nuevo enfermo.

1) The book gave a word/phrase bank that said "this morning" should be "hoy por la mañana". Then, in two of the sentences, they used "esta mañana". It's the same, right?
-- Yes, it's the same... You could have said:
- Esta mañana, a las ocho...
- Hoy, a las ocho de la mañana... (This is the one I'd have said.)
- Hoy por la mañana, a las ocho, ...
- Hoy en la mañana, a las ocho,

2) Does it matter if I write "a las ocho" before "esta mañana"? Or does it HAVE to be "esta mañana a las ocho"?
-- I can't say it's incorrect, but it sounds less natural.

3) medico doctor ... right?
-- Yes.

4) Why is nuevo BEFORE enfermo instead of AFTER??
-- Some adjectives like nuevo, anterior, buen(o), etc., tend to sound better before the noun.

Btw, just two notes:
-> "Visitar", when you talk about a person, it must have a preposition "a": "visitar a alguien" - el médico visita al enfermo.
-> Health workers and patient's family often tend to say "paciente" instead of "enfermo".


@Perikles:

[laepelba]

Thanks, Malila - I just double checked the answers and they do have the "a" before nuevo enfermo. It's another error that I have been making a lot and need to watch out for! GRACIAS!!