A criança chutou a bola.

Because both criança and bola are feminine singular nouns, and a is the feminine singular definite article meaning the.

So:

• a criança = the child
• a bola = the ball

Portuguese uses articles very naturally and often more regularly than English does.

No. Criança is a grammatically feminine noun, but it can refer to any child, whether male or female.

So a criança can mean:

• a boy child
• a girl child

This is a good example of how grammatical gender and real-life sex are not always the same thing in Portuguese.

Chutou is the third-person singular preterite form of the verb chutar.

Infinitive:

• chutar = to kick

Conjugation here:

• ele/ela/você chutou = he/she/you kicked

Since a criança is a singular subject, chutou is the correct verb form.

It is the pretérito perfeito in Portuguese, usually called the simple past or preterite in English grammar explanations.

It normally shows a completed action in the past. In this sentence, it sounds like one finished event: the child kicked the ball.

It does not suggest an ongoing or repeated action. If you wanted that kind of meaning, Portuguese might use a different past form, such as chutava.

Yes. This is the most neutral and common order:

• A criança = subject
• chutou = verb
• a bola = direct object

So the sentence follows subject + verb + object, just like standard English word order.

Portuguese can change word order for style or emphasis, but this version is the basic, natural one.

In normal Portuguese, you would usually say a bola if you mean a specific ball.

Bare singular count nouns like bola by itself are much less common than in English. So:

• a bola = the ball
• uma bola = a ball

Just bola on its own would usually sound incomplete or unnatural in a sentence like this.

Because criança is a feminine noun, so it takes a, not o.

This is something you have to learn with the noun. Although many nouns ending in -a are feminine, the most reliable clue is the article used with them:

• a criança
• a bola

So here the article confirms the gender.

A rough Brazilian Portuguese pronunciation is kree-AHN-suh.

A few helpful details:

• cri sounds roughly like kree
• ç sounds like s
• ã is nasal, so the vowel is pronounced through the nose
• the stress is on the middle syllable: cri-AN-ça

The r in cri is not the strong English r. In Brazilian Portuguese, it is usually a light tap in this position.

A rough Brazilian pronunciation is shoo-TOH.

Helpful points:

• ch sounds like English sh
• the stress is on the last syllable: chu-TOU
• ou is often pronounced close to oh in many Brazilian accents

So the whole word sounds something like shoo-TOH.

Sometimes, yes, but only if the context already makes the subject clear.

For example:

• Chutou a bola.

This is grammatically possible, but chutou by itself could mean he kicked, she kicked, or you kicked depending on context. So without a criança, the sentence is less specific.

Using A criança makes the sentence clear and complete.

Yes. In Brazilian Portuguese, chutar can also mean to guess, especially an uninformed guess.

For example, in another context:

• Vou chutar = I’m going to take a guess

But in A criança chutou a bola, the meaning is clearly the literal one, because bola naturally goes with kick.