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¿Es ella la hermana del chico?

¿Es ella la hermana del chico?
Is she the boy's sister?
From Lesson 7:Yes/no questions·Spanish (Spain)

Questions & Answers about ¿Es ella la hermana del chico?

Why does the sentence start with Es ella instead of Ella es?
To make a question in Spanish, it is very common to swap (or invert) the normal word order. Instead of the subject followed by the verb (Ella es), you put the verb first (Es ella). You could also just say ¿Ella es la hermana del chico? and raise the pitch of your voice at the end, but this inverted order is very typical for yes/no questions.
Why is it la hermana del chico and not el chico's hermana?
Spanish does not use an apostrophe 's' to show that something belongs to someone. Instead, you always have to phrase it as 'the [thing] of the [owner]'. In this sentence, that means saying 'the sister of the boy'.
What exactly is the word del?
del means 'of the'. In Spanish, whenever the word de (of) is followed immediately by el (the, used for masculine nouns), they must squeeze together to form a single word: del. So, de + el chico becomes del chico.
Do I have to include the word ella in this question?
No, you could just ask ¿Es la hermana del chico?. Spanish speakers often drop subject pronouns like ella (she) or él (he) because the verb usually gives enough clues. However, since the verb es can mean 'he is', 'she is', or 'it is', including ella makes it perfectly clear that you are asking about a female.

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