"Ella es una niña."
Translation:She is a girl.
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Yes. This is one example as to why Spanish can be confusing for those of us who speak English.
They are different letters. "N" is like the English "N". The letter "ñ" sounds like "en-yay" by itself, but when used in a word it is very close to "ni". For example, "niño" sounds like "ninio".
Espana = es-pa-na
España = es-pa-nia
For a beginner I would recommend pronouncing ñ as an 'ni' sound.
Once you hear the ñ sound a few times yourself you'll learn that its a much harsher noise than just 'ni' but it's a step in the right direction I would say.
So even though the sentence means, "She is a girl." it means, "She is a child."?
Both are correct. In English, we generally don't apply masculinity/femininity. In Spanish, niña is the feminine version of child. So, saying "Ella es una niña." means "She is a child." with female being implied.
In Spanish it is ok to drop the personal pronoun "Ella" when the context is clear. So they both mean roughly the same.
In the lesson it says a proper noun like el requires the accent mark. Why didn't ella?
"él" requires an accent when it means "he", and no accent when it means "the". The accent is only there to differentiate the two meanings. "ella" has no other word that sounds like it, so it has no accent in this case.