ella es una niña
/eʝa es una niɲa/from spelling rules
The English phrase "she is a girl" is translated into Spanish as ella es una niña.
This phrase is used to identify a female person as a child. In Spanish, you can often omit the subject pronoun ella and simply say Es una niña or Es una chica to mean "She is a girl."
What does it mean word for word?
The phrase breaks down literally as ella (she), es (is), una (a) and niña (girl).
Which one should you use?
To change the meaning to "she is a woman," you would replace the word niña with mujer.
Is it said differently in some regions?
In Mexico, niña is often replaced with chica. In Spain, the slang term chavala is widely used to refer to a young girl.
How does it change in a sentence?
The noun niña and the article una must both be in the feminine form to agree with the subject ella.
How do you pronounce it?
/eʝa es una niɲa/
Did you know?
- In many Spanish-speaking families, a woman in her fifties may still be called a niña by her parents.
- The word ella is actually a demonstrative in origin, descending from the Latin 'illa' which was used to point out something far away, much like 'that' in English.
- Adding the suffix -ita to create niñita conveys a specific sense of sweetness or fragility that the English word 'little' does not fully capture.
Examples in context
- Él es un niño y ella es una niña.He is a boy and she is a girl.This sentence is useful for showing a contrast between a boy and a girl using ella es una niña.Tatoeba #9622345 by dpcossio, translation #9622329 by kremel
- ¡Oh, mira, ahí viene María! Ella es una chavala muy divertidaOh, look, here comes Maria! She is a very fun girl.
- Ella es una niña muy inteligente.She is a very intelligent girl.
- Mira, ella es una niña de la vecindad.Look, she is a girl from the neighborhood.
Sources
- IPA marked “from spelling rules” is derived from standard Spanish spelling, where Wiktionary gives none.
- Word origins: Wiktionary entries ella, es, una, CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Example sentences: Tatoeba CC BY 2.0 FR.
