LingoDrop
Spanish · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "ustedes" in Spanish?
oos-TEH-thehs, three beats with the stress in the middle and a soft d.
Three syllables, us-TE-des, with the weight on the second-to-last. The word ends in s, so the default rule handles it and no accent is needed — unlike the singular "usted", which ends in d and therefore takes its stress on the final syllable. Adding the plural ending moves the beat one syllable forward.
Listen: ustedes
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
¿Ustedes hablan inglés?
Do you all speak English?
Listen: ¿Ustedes hablan inglés?
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"¿Ustedes hablan inglés?" takes a third-person plural verb even though you are addressing people directly — the same grammatical oddity as the singular "usted". "Inglés" needs an accent to hold the stress on the final syllable against its s ending, and "hablan" has a silent h.
Where English speakers slip
Give the d a full English release and you get a clipped "oos-TED-ehs", when between vowels it should nearly become a th. The opening u also wants reading as a flat English "uh". The regional point matters too: across Latin America "ustedes" is the only plural you, formal or not, while Spain reserves it for formal situations and uses "vosotros" otherwise.