Learn Spanish (Spain): El hielo está aquí.

In this sentence, we are talking about location (aquí means "here"). In Spanish, you always use estar (which gives us está) to say where something or someone is located. You would use es (from ser) to describe a characteristic of the ice (for example, saying it is cold).

How is the word hielo pronounced?

The letter 'h' is completely silent in Spanish. You pronounce hielo as if it were spelled "ielo" (making a "yee-eh-lo" sound).

Why does está have an accent mark on the 'a'?

The accent mark tells you to stress the final syllable: es-TA. It also helps tell it apart from the word esta (without an accent), which means "this" (like in esta casa for "this house").

Could I just say Hielo está aquí without the word el?

Usually, no. In Spanish, when a noun is the main subject of a sentence, it almost always needs an article like el or la in front of it, even in cases where we might drop "the" in English.