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Él es el niño.

Él es el niño.
He is the boy.
From Lesson 1:Definite articles and 'to be' (el, la, soy)·Spanish (Latin America)

Breakdown of Él es el niño.

ser
to be
él
he
el niño
the boy

Questions & Answers about Él es el niño.

Why does the first Él have an accent mark, but the second el doesn't?
The accent mark changes the meaning of the word. Él (with the accent) is the subject pronoun meaning 'he'. el (without the accent) is the masculine definite article meaning 'the'. They sound exactly the same, so the written accent is the only way to tell them apart!
Do I have to include Él, or could I just say es el niño?
You can absolutely just say es el niño! In Spanish, you can often drop the subject pronoun because the verb itself usually tells us who is doing the action. You only need to keep Él if you want to add emphasis or to clear up confusion, since es can also mean 'she is' or 'it is'.
Why do we use es for 'is' in this sentence?
We use es, which is a form of the verb ser (to be), because we are talking about someone's core identity. When you state who or what someone is, you use ser. es is the specific form that matches Él (he).
Would the word for 'the' change if this sentence was about a girl?
Yes! Spanish words for 'the' must match the gender of the noun. Since niño (boy) is a masculine noun, we use the masculine article el. If the sentence was about a girl (niña), you would use the feminine article la, making the sentence Ella es la niña.

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