O vestiário fica perto da esteira.

O is the masculine singular definite article, meaning the.

• o vestiário = the locker room / changing room
• The noun vestiário is masculine in Portuguese, so it takes o, not a.

This is something English speakers often need to get used to, because Portuguese usually requires an article where English might or might not use one.

Vestiário usually means locker room, changing room, or sometimes dressing room, depending on context.

In a gym, sports center, or swimming pool, o vestiário normally means the place where people change clothes and may have lockers, showers, and benches.

Both ficar and estar can talk about location, but they are not always used in exactly the same way.

In this sentence, fica is very natural because it is often used to say where something is located:

• O vestiário fica perto da esteira. = The locker room is located near the treadmill.

This sounds a bit like describing the place’s position on a map or inside a building.

You may also hear:

• O vestiário está perto da esteira.

That is also understandable and often acceptable, but fica is especially common when talking about where places are situated.

Fica is the third person singular of ficar in the present tense.

Here is the relevant part of the conjugation:

• eu fico = I stay / I am located
• você / ele / ela fica = you / he / she stays, is located

Since o vestiário is a singular noun, the verb is singular too:

• O vestiário fica...

Perto de means near or close to.

When followed by a + a feminine singular noun with its article, de + a contracts to da:

• perto de a esteira → perto da esteira

So:

• perto da esteira = near the treadmill

This contraction is required in normal Portuguese.

Because esteira normally takes the definite article a here:

• a esteira = the treadmill

And Portuguese combines de + a into da:

• de + a = da

So the full structure is:

• perto de + a esteira → perto da esteira

This kind of contraction is very common in Portuguese:

• de + o = do
• de + a = da
• de + os = dos
• de + as = das

In this sentence, esteira most likely means treadmill, especially if the context is a gym.

But esteira can also mean other things depending on context, such as:

• a mat
• a conveyor belt
• a belt or track in some technical settings

So context matters. Near a vestiário, in a fitness setting, esteira is very naturally understood as treadmill.

Yes, this sentence follows a very familiar order:

• O vestiário = subject
• fica = verb
• perto da esteira = location phrase

So it works like:

• The locker room / is located / near the treadmill

That makes this sentence fairly straightforward for an English speaker.

A rough pronunciation guide for Brazilian Portuguese is:

oo vehs-chee-AH-ryoo FEE-kah PEHR-too dah es-TAY-rah

A few helpful notes:

• vestiário has stress on á: ves-ti-Á-rio
• In many Brazilian accents, ti before a vowel can sound like chee, so vestiário may sound like ves-chee-Á-rio
• fica is stressed on the first syllable: FI-ca
• perto has a tapped r, not a strong English r
• esteira is stressed on tei: es-TEI-ra

Pronunciation varies a bit across Brazil, but this will help you recognize and say it.

Yes. Próximo de also means near or close to.

So you could say:

• O vestiário fica próximo da esteira.

That sounds natural and slightly more formal than perto de in some contexts, but both are common and correct.

Normally, yes.

Portuguese uses definite articles much more often than English does. So in a sentence like this, it is natural to say:

• O vestiário fica perto da esteira.

If you remove the articles, the sentence sounds unnatural or incomplete in standard Portuguese.

For learners, a good habit is to learn nouns together with their article:

• o vestiário
• a esteira

That helps with both grammar and gender.