LingoDrop
Spanish · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "cuándo" in Spanish?
KWAHN-doh, two beats — the ua glides into one sound and the accent flags a question.
Two syllables, CUÁN-do, and like "dónde", the accent is marking the word as interrogative rather than moving the beat — a vowel-final word would already be stressed on the first syllable by default. The unaccented "cuando" means when as a plain conjunction and is pronounced identically.
Listen: cuándo
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
¿Cuándo sale el avión?
When does the plane leave?
Listen: ¿Cuándo sale el avión?
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"¿Cuándo sale el avión?" pairs the question word with "sale", stressed SA-le on the second-to-last syllable. "Avión" needs its accent because the word ends in n and the default would otherwise stress the A — the mark moves the beat to the end. The io there fuses into one syllable.
Where English speakers slip
The ua gets pulled apart into two syllables, giving "koo-AHN-do", when the u is a glide belonging to the first beat. The final o then wants reducing to "uh". And in writing, learners drop the accent, which technically changes the word from a question to a conjunction — "cuando llegue" and "cuándo llega" are different sentences.