Spanish · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "grande" in Spanish?

Q: How do you pronounce grande in Spanish?

grande is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈɡɾan.de/. It means “big / large.” GRAHN-deh, stress on the first syllable — the final e is short, not "ay".

GRAHN-deh, stress on the first syllable — the final e is short, not "ay".

grande /ˈɡɾan.de/

Two syllables, GRAN-de, beat on the first, straight from the default rule. This adjective has no separate feminine form, so "grande" works for both genders, and the only change is the plural "grandes" — which keeps the same stress since the ending stays under the default. Before a singular noun it shortens to "gran", one syllable.

Listen: grande

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

Sound it out

gr A hard g as in "go", followed immediately by a single tap of the r. The tongue flicks forward once; it never curls back the way an English r does.

an A wide-open "ah" as in "father", closed by a released n. This is the stressed beat.

de A dental d — softened here because it follows an n — and a short "eh" as in "bed". The e is a real vowel, so the word is two syllables, not one.

Hear it in a sentence

Ese árbol es muy grande.

That tree is very big.

Listen: Ese árbol es muy grande.

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

"Ese árbol es muy grande" contains an accent worth explaining: "árbol" ends in l, so the default would stress the last syllable, and the mark drags the beat back to ÁR. Say "ese árbol" and the final e links into the á, giving eh-SAR-bol. The single r inside "árbol" is a tap.

Where English speakers slip

English speakers read this as the loanword "grand" plus a silent e, producing a one-syllable "grand". The final e is fully pronounced as a short "eh", which makes the word two beats. The r then needs to become a single tap rather than an English curl. And the position rule matters: "grande" after a noun means large, but "gran" before it means great — "una gran mujer" is not a big woman.