Word
Es la hermana, no la amiga.
Meaning
She is the sister, not the friend.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Es la hermana, no la amiga.
ser
to be
la hermana
the sister
la amiga
the female friend
no
no, not
Questions & Answers about Es la hermana, no la amiga.
Why do both nouns use the word la?
If the sentence was about a brother and a male friend, how would it change?
You would change the feminine -a endings to the masculine -o endings, and change the article la to the masculine article el. The sentence would become: Es el hermano, no el amigo.
Where is the word for "she" in this sentence?
The word for "she" is ella, but it is left out here! In Spanish, you can often drop words like "I", "he", or "she" because the verb (es) already tells us who is doing the action. The feminine words hermana and amiga also make it obvious we are talking about a female.
Can no mean "not" as well as "no"?
Yes! In English, we use "no" and "not" in slightly different ways, but in Spanish, the word no covers both. Here, no la amiga simply translates to "not the friend".