Lost in the translation

Tonight, I was trying to make a point about nouns and adjectives and their placement. I put up on the board the first thing that came to my mind "fast red car" and then asked a student to come to the board to write it in Portuguese. The chatter went up considerably as I was trying to figure out what the problem was. The young man went to the board and hesitantly started to translate. I was eventually found out that the phrase I had put on the board was one that my students said would not have been uttered in their language, but they did get the point. English is adjective then noun usually and in other languages it may be noun then adjective. I learn more everyday from my students regardless of their age.