Question 1

Why is no placed before the verb instead of after it like in English?

Accepted Answer

In Spanish, simple negation is formed by putting no directly before the verb. So, instead of saying "is not", you say no es (literally "not is"). This rule applies to almost all verbs in Spanish.

Question 2

Why doesn't it say un profesor? The English translation says "a teacher".

Accepted Answer

In Spanish, you don't use the indefinite articles un or una (a/an) when stating someone's profession or occupation. You just use the verb followed directly by the job: es profesor and es estudiante.

Question 3

Why is there no él (he) in the second half of the sentence?

Accepted Answer

In Spanish, you often drop the subject pronoun (like él, yo, or tú) because the verb itself tells us who is doing the action. Since the first half already established we are talking about él (he), repeating it before the second es is unnecessary.

Question 4

Why does Él have an accent mark?

Accepted Answer

The written accent mark distinguishes between two words that sound exactly the same: él means "he", while el (without the accent) means "the". Here we need the pronoun "he", so we use Él.

Él no es profesor, es estudiante.

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