Learn French: La femme est là. - The woman is there.

In French, all nouns have a gender. Femme (woman) is a feminine noun, so it takes the feminine word for "the", which is la. If it were a masculine noun, we would use le.

Why do we use est in this sentence?

Est means "is". It is the form of the verb être (to be) that goes with il (he), elle (she), or on (one/we). Because la femme (the woman) can be replaced by elle (she), we use est.

Why does là have an accent mark at the end of the sentence, but la at the beginning doesn't?

The accent mark on là changes its meaning entirely! La without the accent means "the". Là with the accent means "there" or "here". They sound exactly the same, so the accent helps tell them apart in writing.

Why does femme sound like it has an "a" in it when I hear it spoken?

This is a famous pronunciation exception in French! Even though femme is spelled with an "e", the first part sounds just like the "fa" in the English word "family". It is pronounced like "fam".