ella
she
The feminine third-person pronoun meaning "she" or "her"
Encoding Strategies:
linguistic
mnemonic
repetition
él
he
+
-a
feminine suffix
Ella means she and is just él0 (he0) made feminine1 with -a1. It also helps that Ella is a girl's name in English — and in Spanish, it means "she."
ella
she
Used as the subject of a sentence to refer to a woman, girl, or female animal.
- Ella trabaja en un hospital = She works in a hospital
- Ella llegó tarde a la reunión = She arrived late to the meeting
her (after a preposition)
After a preposition, ella becomes "her" in English — just like él becomes "him."
- El regalo es para ella = The gift is for her
- Fui al cine con ella = I went to the movies with her
it (feminine noun)
Since all Spanish nouns have gender, ella can also refer to a feminine noun (a thing or animal), where English would just say "it."
- Esa es mi mochila. Dentro de ella hay un libro = That's my backpack. Inside it there's a book