Breakdown of Él es el amigo, pero no es de México.
ser
to be
él
he
de
from / of
México
Mexico
pero
but
el amigo
the male friend
no
no, not
Questions & Answers about Él es el amigo, pero no es de México.
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) means "he", while el (without the accent) is the masculine word for "the". Here, we have Él ("he") and el amigo ("the friend").
How would this sentence change if the friend were a woman?
You would change the masculine article el to the feminine article la, and the masculine noun amigo to the feminine noun amiga. The first half of the sentence would become Ella es la amiga ("She is the friend").
Why doesn't it say pero él no es de México in the second half?
In Spanish, you can drop the subject pronoun (like yo, tú, or él) if it is already clear who you are talking about. Since we established we are talking about him (Él) at the beginning, we can just say no es instead of repeating él es.
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