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Ella se da cuenta de la verdad.

Ella se da cuenta de la verdad.
She realizes the truth.
From Lesson 207:Prepositional verbs (darse cuenta de)·Spanish (Latin America)

Breakdown of Ella se da cuenta de la verdad.

ella
she
la verdad
the truth
darse cuenta de
to realize

Questions & Answers about Ella se da cuenta de la verdad.

Why do we use de after cuenta in this sentence?
The verb phrase darse cuenta (to realize) is a verb with a governed preposition. This means it has a built-in preposition that must be used whenever you mention what is being realized. For this verb, that preposition is always de. You cannot just say Ella se da cuenta la verdad.
Could I just use the verb realizar to mean "realizes" here?
No, this is a very common false friend! In Spanish, realizar means to carry out, achieve, or make something real (like carrying out a project or making a dream come true). To talk about a mental realization or becoming aware of a fact, you must use darse cuenta de.
Why is there a se before da?
The verb for "to realize" is darse cuenta, which requires a reflexive pronoun. The se matches the subject ella. If you drop the se and just say dar cuenta de, it changes the meaning completely to "to give an account of" or "to report on."
If the sentence were "She realizes THAT it is the truth," would we keep the de?
Yes! Unlike English, where we just say "realizes that," Spanish keeps the governed preposition even before the word que (that). So you would say: Ella se da cuenta de que es la verdad. Dropping the de before que with this verb is a very common mistake for English speakers.

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