Él vs EL en español: Are you using them correctly?

¡Hola amigos! It’s Brenda Romaniello here today ¿Cómo estás? Welcome to Hola Tuesday, your weekly Spanish lesson!!
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There are different ways we can announce the winner in Spanish:
El ganador es John [the winner is John]
Él ganó, su nombre es John [he won, his name is John]

Have you noticed we have “el” and “él” in those sentences? One has a written accent and the other doesn’t. This is one of the most common questions our students ask: ¿Cuál es la diference entre “él” y “el”? What’s the difference between “él” y “el”? That’s exactly what we’ll be looking into in today’s lesson.

But before we get to our lesson of this week, Check our 10 Most Useful Phrases in Spanish here.

¡Perfecto! Let’s get to the lesson: él vs el

Él with a written accent is a personal pronoun, the third person masculine singular and it means “he”. So, we’ll see it functioning as a subject or object in a sentence.
Por ejemplo: él habla español [he studies Spanish] – María estudia español con él [María studies Spanish with him]

El without the written accent is the specific article for masculine singular and it means “the”. It’s function in a sentence is to modify a masculine singular noun.
Por ejemplo: el carro es azul [the car is blue] – John es el ganador [John is the winner]

Both are pronounced the same. In writing you can see the difference because of that written accent and in speech you can tell the difference in meaning based on the context. El ganador cannot be ‘he winner’, and él ganó cannot be ‘the won’.

Now I would love to hear from you: Can you write 2 sentences: one with “el” and one with “él” showcasing the difference? Practice in the comments below.

That’s all for today! Remember to sign up to your Hola Spanish FREE lessons here, you’ll get access to the 10 Most Useful Phrases in Spanish and more content that we only share via email. I’ll see you next week on your Hola Tuesday lesson! ¡Adiós! ¡Hasta la próxima clase!