Learn Italian: Lei è la donna.

Lei è la donna.

She is the woman.

Breakdown of Lei è la donna.

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Questions & Answers about Lei è la donna.

Why does è have an accent mark?

The accent mark is very important! It changes the meaning of the word. è (with the accent) means "is", while e (without the accent) means "and".

Can I just say È la donna without using Lei?

Yes! Italian allows you to drop the subject pronoun because the verb already shows who is doing the action. You can simply say È la donna. We usually only include Lei when we want to emphasize that she specifically is the woman, or to avoid confusion if it is not clear from the context.

Why is the word for "the" la here instead of il?

In Italian, nouns have a gender (masculine or feminine), and the word for "the" must match that gender. donna is a feminine noun, which you can often tell because it ends in -a. Therefore, it uses the feminine article la. If we were talking about a masculine noun ending in -o, we would use il.