Spanish speakers, a pronunciation question

[cathmom]

I've studied Spanish for years, taken graduate-level classes, interacted with many people, watched movies, TV, listened to songs, etc. I got the Learnables Spanish this summer used as a possibility for my dd and just got it out to see what it was like.

And the speaker pronounces "grande" as "gran-dee." :confused:

I have NEVER heard anyone say "gran-dee." "Una casa gran-dee" "Un avión gran-dee" over and over and over.

Is this a variation I've never been exposed to? I have only ever heard it said, "gran-day."

¡Gracias!

[matroyshka]

No, that's just wrong.

Vowels in Spanish make exactly one sound each, which also happen to be the real phonetic vowel sounds. An "e" sounds like something halfway between "eh" and "ay". An actual long A sound is a dipthong and would be spelled "ei" in Spanish.

Never, never, never, never would an 'e' in Spanish be spoken as 'ee' - that sound is represented by 'i' in Spanish (which I'm sure you already know). I know of some regional variations in consonant pronunciation, but that pronunciation's so far out of the ballpark it's not even funny.

I wouldn't trust that program to teach anything else after that...

And no, I'm not a native speaker, but I'll eat my hat if 'grande' is pronounced that way anywhere in the Spanish speaking world...

[cathmom]

I wouldn't trust that program to teach anything else after that...



Yeah, that was my reaction. Then I thought maybe they got the speaker from the one Spanish-speaking place I never heard of that pronounces it "gran-dee." :lol:

[alpidarkomama]

Oh, that's awful. How on earth did that get through??? Good grief!

[CleoQc]

I'm not a native speaker, but I have never heard 'grandee' either. And I had teachers from Spain and from South America.
Ditch the program

[Mabelen]

Grandee?, Seriously? I am a native speaker from Spain and I have never heard that pronunciation either. It is definitely not standard pronunciation anywhere in the Spanish speaking world that I know of.

[cathmom]

Thanks all! I really was shocked to hear that on the tape. Who knows what else is wrong on there!