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Las ciudades son grandes.

Las ciudades son grandes.
The cities are big.
From Lesson 7:Making nouns plural (-s, -es)·Spanish (Latin America)

Questions & Answers about Las ciudades son grandes.

Why is the plural of ciudad spelled ciudades instead of just adding an "s"?
In Spanish, when a noun ends in a consonant like "d", you make it plural by adding "-es". So, ciudad becomes ciudades.
Why do we use the feminine article las? The word ciudad doesn't end in "a".
That's right! However, almost all Spanish nouns that end in "-dad" (like ciudad or universidad) are feminine. Because we are talking about more than one city, we use the feminine plural article las.
Why does grande change to grandes?
Adjectives in Spanish have to match the noun they describe in number (singular or plural). Since ciudades is plural, the adjective must be plural too. Because the singular word grande ends in a vowel, we just add an "-s" to make it grandes.
Shouldn't the adjective be grandas since ciudades is feminine?
No, because the singular adjective is grande, which ends in an "e". Adjectives that end in "e" are gender-neutral, meaning they are the exact same for masculine and feminine nouns. You only need to add the "-s" for the plural!
Why do we use son here instead of están?
We use son (the plural form of ser) because being big is a core characteristic or physical description of the cities. The other "to be" verb, estar, is used for temporary states, conditions, or locations.

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