A question about Spanish and usage of the word "de."?

Let see if I can explain this in a way you understand.

In English, the tendency is to use nouns as adjectives, as it's the case in your examples. Instead of saying "sprouts of bean" you say "bean sprouts". In this example and grammatically speaking, 'bean' is no longer a noun but an adjective.

Having said this, let me tell you how it works in Spanish.

In Spanish, adjectives must agree in gender and number with the noun they're modifying. You're right about that: "las casas bellas".

However, Spanish does not turn nouns into adjectives, so never in these examples, 'soja' and 'girasol' will be adjectives. They'll always be nouns. So, what you have there is TWO nouns separated by the preposition 'de'.

'De', that as you know means 'of', is indicating possession and it's never placed between a noun and an adjective.

There are nouns that are usually used in the singular like "azúcar", for example. The same as "sugar" in English. It's understood as a singular element.

The same things goes for "soja". You'll never hear "dos sojas". That just doesn't exist.

In the case of "girasol", you use the plural only when talking about the amount of flowers (girasoles). But that's another story.

Two nouns do not need to agree in number and gender. If that were the case, you wouldn't be able to say things like "los lápices de mi hermano".. you'd have to say "los lápices de mis hermanos". And it makes no sense when you have only one brother. Get the idea?

When talking about 'semillas' usually the noun that comes after 'de' is in the singular. Just remember that and you'll be ok.

I hope I didn't make it more confusing for you..:-)

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It´s very easy, just look at the words bean sprouts. There only the word sprouts is in plural and bean in singular, it´s exactly the same thing in Spanish (los brotes de soja). (Brotes de sojas would mean sprouts of beans.) The same thing goes for your other sentence. Hope you understand what I mean!

And adjective and its noun must agree in number and gender, but in "brotes de soja" you have two nouns and a preposition. (of), and they don't have to agree.

Imagine that I have two cars, and you refer to them as "Diana's cars" ->

los coches de Diana CORRECT

los coches de Dianas INCORRECT

because Diana, one person, can have more than 1 car. Agreement in this case is completely impossible.