Learn Italian: La ragazza non è pronta.

In Italian, you make a sentence negative by placing non directly before the verb. Here, the verb is è (is), so we put non right in front of it to say 'is not'.

Why does the word for ready end in an 'a' (pronta)?

Adjectives in Italian change their endings to match the gender of the noun they describe. Since la ragazza (the girl) is a feminine noun, the adjective must end in the feminine -a, making it pronta. If we were talking about a boy (il ragazzo), it would be pronto.

What is the difference between è and e?

The accent mark is very important! With the accent, è is a verb meaning 'is'. Without the accent, e means 'and'. Always remember the accent when you mean 'is' so people reading your Italian do not get confused.

How do we know to use La instead of Il?

La and Il both mean 'the', but you must choose the one that matches the noun's gender. Because ragazza is a feminine noun, we use the feminine article La.