Learn Italian: La ragazza è qui.

In Italian, nouns have a gender. The word ragazza ends in -a, which usually means it is a feminine word. Because it is feminine, we must use the feminine word for 'the', which is La. If we were talking about a boy (ragazzo), we would use the masculine word Il instead.

Why does è have an accent mark?

The accent mark is very important because it changes the meaning of the word! è (with the accent pointing down and to the right) means 'is', which is the 'he/she/it' form of the verb essere (to be). Without the accent, e simply means 'and'.

Since lei means 'she', shouldn't the sentence be La ragazza lei è qui?

Just like in English, you don't need to double up the subject by saying 'The girl she is here'. La ragazza is already your subject. If you just wanted to say 'She is here' without mentioning the girl, you could say Lei è qui, or you could use the Italian rule of dropping the subject completely and simply say È qui.

How do you pronounce the word qui?

In Italian, the letters qu make a 'kw' sound, similar to English words like 'quick' or 'queen'. Since the Italian vowel i always sounds like 'ee', the word qui is pronounced exactly like 'kwee'.