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Mi hermana mayor está enferma hoy y no trabaja.

Mi hermana mayor está enferma hoy y no trabaja.
My older sister is sick today and is not working.
From Lesson 76:Irregular comparatives (mejor, peor, mayor, menor)·Spanish (Latin America)

Questions & Answers about Mi hermana mayor está enferma hoy y no trabaja.

I thought más vieja meant "older". Why do we use mayor in this sentence?
While viejo means "old", to say someone is older in age, we use the irregular comparative mayor. You shouldn't use más viejo or más vieja for people because it sounds rude, almost like saying "more elderly."
Since hermana is feminine, shouldn't mayor change to match its gender?
No, it stays exactly as mayor. Adjectives that end in a consonant (like the r in mayor) usually have the same form for both masculine and feminine nouns. If you were talking about multiple older sisters, it would only change for number: hermanas mayores.
Why do we use está for "is sick" instead of es?
We use está (from the verb estar) because being sick is a temporary physical condition. If you used es (from ser), it would sound like being a sick person is a permanent characteristic of her identity.
The translation says "is not working", but no trabaja is the simple present tense. Why not use no está trabajando?
You definitely can use no está trabajando, but in Spanish, the simple present tense (trabaja) is very frequently used to express actions happening right now or today. Both "she doesn't work" and "she isn't working" translate perfectly to no trabaja.

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