Learn Hardcore Portuguese (Brazil): À noite, ela lava a louça e coloca a roupa limpa na cadeira. - At night, she washes the dishes and puts the clean clothes on the chair.

À noite, ela lava a louça. → At night, she does the dishes. (time expression)
A noite está fria. → The night is cold. (a noite is the subject, the night)

So, when you mean “at night” (a time when something happens), use à noite.
When you’re literally talking about “the night” as a thing, use a noite (no accent).

Can I also say De noite instead of À noite? Is there any difference?

Yes, you can say De noite, ela lava a louça... as well.

À noite and de noite both mean “at night”.
In Brazil, they’re almost always interchangeable in everyday speech.
À noite sounds slightly more neutral/formal.
De noite can sound a bit more casual/colloquial, depending on the region.

Both are correct and very common.

Why is it lava a louça and not something like lava os pratos?

In Brazilian Portuguese, the usual expression for “to do the dishes” is lavar a louça.

louça = all the dirty kitchenware: plates, glasses, cups, cutlery, pans, etc.
os pratos = literally “the plates”, only one part of that.

So:

Ela lava a louça. → She does the dishes (washes everything used in the meal).
Ela lava os pratos. → She washes the plates (sounds more limited or unusual as a routine chore).

You can say lavar os pratos, but lavar a louça is the default, idiomatic way.

Is lava present tense? Does it mean she is washing the dishes right now?

Lava is the present indicative, 3rd person singular of lavar.

In Portuguese, the simple present can mean:

Habitual action (most common here)
- À noite, ela lava a louça.
  → At night, she (usually) does the dishes. (regular routine)
General truth / repeated action
- Ele trabalha muito. → He works a lot.

To say “she is washing the dishes right now”, you would use the progressive:

Ela está lavando a louça. → She is washing the dishes (right now).

So in this sentence, the context (À noite) makes it clearly habitual.

Why is there a comma after À noite? Could I put À noite at the end of the sentence instead?

Yes, both positions are possible:

À noite, ela lava a louça e coloca a roupa limpa na cadeira.
Ela lava a louça e coloca a roupa limpa na cadeira à noite.

The meaning is the same: a habitual action that happens at night.

The comma is there because À noite is an introductory time expression placed at the beginning. When you move it to the end (...na cadeira à noite), you usually don’t use a comma.

What does coloca mean exactly? How is it different from põe?

Coloca is the 3rd person singular of colocar, which means to put / to place / to set.

Ela coloca a roupa limpa na cadeira.
→ She puts/places the clean clothes on the chair.

Põe is the 3rd person singular of pôr, which also means to put. In Brazil:

Ela coloca a roupa limpa na cadeira.
Ela põe a roupa limpa na cadeira.

Both are correct and natural. Colocar is a bit more common in everyday speech; pôr is very common too but slightly shorter and more informal in some contexts.

Why is it a roupa limpa (singular) when in English we say “the clean clothes” (plural)?

In Portuguese, roupa (singular) often works as a collective noun meaning clothes in general:

Vou lavar a roupa. → I’m going to wash the clothes / do the laundry.
Ela guarda a roupa no armário. → She puts the clothes in the closet.

So:

a roupa limpa literally = the clean clothing, but it’s translated naturally as “the clean clothes”.

You can say roupas (plural), but:

roupa (singular) = clothes as a mass/collective (everyday use)
roupas (plural) = items/pieces of clothing, often in contexts like shopping, fashion, lists of items, etc.

Here, a roupa limpa is the most idiomatic.

Why is limpa after roupa, and why does it end in -a?

Limpa is an adjective meaning clean, and in Portuguese:

Adjectives usually come after the noun:
- roupa limpa → literally clothes clean → clean clothes
  This is the normal order.
Adjectives agree with the noun in gender and number:
- roupa is feminine singular, so limpa is also feminine singular.
- masculine singular: limpo (ex: carro limpo – clean car)
- feminine plural: limpas (ex: roupas limpas – clean clothes, plural form)
- masculine plural: limpos

So a roupa limpa is correct agreement: feminine singular noun + feminine singular adjective.

What does na cadeira mean, and why is it na instead of em a?

Na is a contraction:

em (in/on/at) + a (the, feminine singular) → na

So:

na cadeira = em + a cadeira → in/on the chair
In this context, it clearly means on the chair.

Examples:

no carro = em + o carro → in the car
na mesa = em + a mesa → on the table

In Portuguese, em covers in, on, and sometimes at, and it usually contracts with the article.

Do we really need the pronoun ela here? Could we just say À noite, lava a louça...?

Grammatically, you can drop the subject pronoun:

À noite, ela lava a louça...
À noite, lava a louça...

Both are possible. Portuguese allows null subjects because the verb ending (lava) already tells you the person (3rd singular).

However, in Brazilian Portuguese:

People often use subject pronouns (eu, ele, ela, a gente, eles, elas) more than in European Portuguese.
Ela makes it very clear that we are talking about “she”, not “he” or “you” (formal).

So including ela is natural and clear, and that’s why it appears in the sentence.