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Las hermanas del estudiante están cansadas.

Las hermanas del estudiante están cansadas.
The student's sisters are tired.
From Lesson 17:Possession (de)·Spanish (Latin America)

Questions & Answers about Las hermanas del estudiante están cansadas.

Why does it say del estudiante instead of using an apostrophe 's' like in English?
Spanish doesn't use an apostrophe 's' to show ownership. Instead, you use the formula "[possessed thing] + de (of) + [owner]". So, to say "the student's sisters," you literally say "the sisters of the student".
Where does the word del come from?
Del is a mandatory contraction. Whenever the preposition de (of) is followed immediately by the masculine word for "the", el, they combine into del. So, de + el = del.
How do we know the student is male?
The noun estudiante doesn't change based on gender. We have to look at the words around it to know if we are talking about a male or female student. Because the sentence uses del (which contains the masculine el), we know this specific student is male. If it were a female student, the sentence would use de la estudiante (which does not contract).
Why is the word for tired spelled cansadas instead of cansados?
Adjectives in Spanish have to match the gender and number of the noun they describe. Because the people who are tired are Las hermanas (feminine, plural), the adjective must also be feminine and plural: cansadas. Notice that it matches the sisters, not the student!
Why use están instead of son for "are"?
Spanish has two verbs for "to be": ser and estar. You use estar for temporary states and conditions, like feelings or physical states. Since being tired is a temporary condition, we use están.

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