/aˌθeɾ ˌuna monˌtaɲa de un ˌɡɾano de aˈɾena/ lit. ‘make a mountain out of a grain of sand’
Spanish idiom, everyday. To treat a small problem as if it were a big one.
Draft Not yet checked by a native Spanish speaker.
How do people use Hacer una montaña de un grano de arena
?
Everyday and neutral, fine in speech and in writing. Mostly heard as a telling-off, in the negative: “no hagas una montaña de un grano de arena”. You can swap the two halves around: “de un grano de arena hace una montaña”.
Also said hacer de un grano de arena una montaña
Hacer una montaña de un grano de arena
in real sentences
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No hagas una montaña de un grano de arena.
Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill.
Tatoeba, sentence by Shishir, translation by U2FS, CC BY 2.0 FR
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Hace una montaña de un grano de arena.
He makes a mountain out of a molehill.
Tatoeba, sentence by enteka, translation by shekitten, CC BY 2.0 FR
Where does Hacer una montaña de un grano de arena
come from?
The picture explains itself: one grain of sand inflated into a whole mountain. The Real Academia’s dictionary records an older-looking relative, “hacer de una pulga un camello, o un elefante” (a flea into a camel or an elephant). I found no dated first use of the grain-of-sand version, and nothing that says whether it grew up in Spanish or came over from the English molehill.
Mistakes learners make with Hacer una montaña de un grano de arena
Translating the English molehill. A mole’s hill is “una topera”, and “hacer una montaña de una topera” isn’t something Spanish speakers say.
Other Spanish idioms like Hacer una montaña de un grano de arena
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?
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