Quando a sirene tocou, a policial pediu que todos saíssem do cruzamento com calma.

In Brazilian Portuguese, policial usually means police officer.

• a policial = the female police officer
• o policial = the male police officer

That is different from:

• a polícia = the police as an institution or police force

So in this sentence, a policial refers to one specific female officer.

Tocar has several meanings, and context decides which one is intended.

Here, with sirene, tocou means something like:

• sounded
• went off
• rang

So Quando a sirene tocou means When the siren sounded / went off.

This is very common in Portuguese: the same verb can have different meanings depending on the noun that follows.

Tocou is the preterite form of tocar for ele/ela/você.

• tocar = to sound / to ring / to play / to touch
• tocou = sounded / rang / went off

The preterite is used because this is a completed event in the past: the siren sounded, and then the officer acted.

Because Quando a sirene tocou is an introductory time clause.

Portuguese commonly uses a comma after a dependent clause when it comes first:

• Quando a sirene tocou, a policial pediu...

If the main clause came first, the comma would often disappear:

• A policial pediu que todos saíssem do cruzamento quando a sirene tocou.

So the comma is mainly about sentence structure, not a pause that changes the meaning.

Pedir que is a very common structure meaning to ask that... or to request that...

Here:

• a policial pediu = the police officer asked
• que todos saíssem... = that everyone leave / move out...

So the sentence literally follows a pattern like:

• She asked that everyone leave the intersection calmly.

In Portuguese, verbs like pedir, querer, esperar, and recomendar often use que before another clause.

Because after pediu que, Portuguese normally uses the subjunctive, not the indicative.

Here, the officer is expressing a request, not stating a fact. That is why Portuguese uses:

• que todos saíssem

This is the imperfect subjunctive of sair.

Why the imperfect subjunctive specifically? Because the main verb pediu is in the past. A past verb of request often triggers the imperfect subjunctive in the subordinate clause.

Compare:

• Ela pede que todos saiam. = She asks that everyone leave.
• Ela pediu que todos saíssem. = She asked that everyone leave.

So saíssem is there because the sentence is reporting a past request.

Yes. In Brazilian Portuguese, pediu para todos saírem is also very common and natural.

So these are both possible:

• A policial pediu que todos saíssem...
• A policial pediu para todos saírem...

The version with que + subjunctive is often seen as a bit more formal or more traditionally grammatical in careful writing, while para + infinitive is extremely common in everyday speech.

Both are useful to recognize.

Todos means everyone or all of them.

It is masculine plural because Portuguese uses the masculine plural for:

• mixed groups
• groups of unknown gender
• general references to people

So:

• todos = everyone / all of them
• todas = all of them, if the group is entirely female

In this sentence, todos is the normal general form.

Because do is a contraction:

• de + o = do

The verb sair often uses de to express movement out of a place:

• sair de algum lugar = to leave / get out of some place

So:

• sair do cruzamento = to leave the intersection

This kind of contraction is extremely common in Portuguese:

• de + a = da
• de + o = do
• em + a = na
• em + o = no

Cruzamento usually means intersection, crossing, or crossroads, depending on context.

In a traffic context, cruzamento is most naturally intersection.

So sair do cruzamento means to get out of the intersection or to move away from the intersection area.

Both are possible, but com calma is very common and natural in Brazilian Portuguese.

It literally means with calm, but in English we usually translate it as:

• calmly
• without panicking
• in an orderly way

Calmamente exists, but com calma often sounds more natural in everyday situations, especially when giving instructions.

Compare:

• Saiam com calma. = Leave calmly.
• Saiam calmamente. = Leave calmly.

The first one is usually the more idiomatic everyday choice.

The accent in saíssem shows that the i is stressed and pronounced separately.

The verb is sair. In forms like this, Portuguese keeps the vowel break clear:

• sa-ís-sem

Without the accent, the pronunciation would be less clear and might suggest a different sound pattern.

You will see this in several forms of sair, such as:

• saí
• saía
• saísse
• saíssem

So the accent helps mark both pronunciation and stress.

A simple approximation for an English speaker is:

• sah-EE-sem

The stressed part is í.

In Brazilian Portuguese, the final -em is nasal, so the real pronunciation is a bit more nasal than that English-friendly version. But stressing the EE part will already get you much closer.

Yes, to some extent.

For example, you could say:

• A policial pediu que todos saíssem do cruzamento com calma quando a sirene tocou.

But the original order:

• Quando a sirene tocou, a policial pediu...

puts the time setting first, which is very natural if the speaker wants to emphasize the sequence of events.

So the original version is not unusual at all; it just foregrounds when everything happened.

Not always word-for-word. The best English translation depends on context.

With sirene, possible translations include:

• when the siren sounded
• when the siren went off
• when the siren rang

In many emergency or traffic contexts, went off or sounded may feel more natural than rang in English. But in Portuguese, tocou works very naturally here.