O pacote chegou há pouco tempo.

Chegou is the 3rd person singular form of chegar in the pretérito perfeito (simple past).

Because the subject is o pacote (the package), the verb must also be in the 3rd person singular:

• eu cheguei = I arrived
• você/ele/ela chegou = you/he/she arrived
• o pacote chegou = the package arrived

In this sentence, chegou expresses a completed action in the past.

In this sentence, há pouco tempo means a short time ago or not long ago.

Here, há comes from the verb haver, but in this kind of expression it works impersonally and means ago.

So:

• há pouco tempo = a short time ago
• há dois dias = two days ago
• há uma semana = a week ago

Even though há is a verb form, you do not translate it literally as there is here. It is just a standard way to express elapsed time.

This is a very common question.

• há with an accent is the verb form from haver
• a without an accent can be a preposition, an article, or part of other structures

When Portuguese means ago, the standard form is há:

• cheguei há cinco minutos
• isso aconteceu há anos

So in your sentence, há pouco tempo is correct because it refers to time elapsed before now.

You may also see people confuse a and há in writing, but the standard written form here is há.

Yes. In fact, há pouco is very common and natural in Brazilian Portuguese.

• O pacote chegou há pouco. = The package arrived a little while ago.
• O pacote chegou há pouco tempo. = The package arrived a short time ago.

Adding tempo makes it slightly fuller, but both are correct.

Almost, but not exactly.

• há pouco = a little while ago
• há pouco tempo = a short time ago

They mean nearly the same thing in everyday use. Pouco tempo is just a more explicit noun phrase, because tempo means time.

Portuguese uses definite articles much more often than English.

So o pacote chegou is the normal way to say the package arrived.

In some contexts, Portuguese can omit the article, but here o pacote sounds most natural if you are referring to a specific package that both speakers know about.

Compare:

• O pacote chegou. = The package arrived.
• Chegou um pacote. = A package arrived.

Because pacote is a masculine noun in Portuguese, so it takes o.

• o pacote
• um pacote

Its gender is grammatical, not based on anything biological. Since pacote ends in -e, you cannot always guess the gender just from the ending, so it is best to learn the noun together with its article:

• o pacote
• not a pacote

Yes, that is grammatically correct.

Portuguese word order is flexible enough to allow that:

• O pacote chegou há pouco tempo.
• Há pouco tempo, o pacote chegou.

The first version is probably more neutral in everyday speech. The second one puts more focus on the time expression.

Both can express a recent arrival, but they are not identical.

• O pacote chegou há pouco tempo. = The package arrived a short time ago.
• O pacote acabou de chegar. = The package has just arrived / just arrived.

Acabou de + infinitive usually means just did something, often more immediate than há pouco tempo.

So:

• acabou de chegar = very recent, just now
• chegou há pouco tempo = recent, but slightly less exact

In Brazilian Portuguese, há is usually pronounced like an open a sound, roughly ah.

So:

• há ≈ ah

The accent mark shows stress and also distinguishes it in writing from plain a.

In normal speech, há pouco tempo flows together smoothly:

• há pouco tempo

In Brazilian Portuguese, chegou is pronounced approximately like:

• sheh-GOH in many accents

A few notes:

• ch in Brazilian Portuguese usually sounds like English sh
• the stress falls on the last syllable: -gou
• the ending ou often sounds like a clear o sound in many Brazilian accents

So the whole sentence sounds roughly like:

• u pa-KO-ti sheh-GOH a POU-ku TEM-pu

That is only an approximation, but it can help at the beginning.

Sometimes, depending on the situation in English, yes.

Portuguese pretérito perfeito often corresponds to the English simple past, but in context English may prefer has arrived or arrived.

For example:

• O pacote chegou há pouco tempo.
  • The package arrived a short time ago.
  • In some contexts, English might also say The package has arrived recently, but that is less direct.

The most natural basic translation is usually the simple past: arrived.

Yes, it is natural and correct.

That said, in everyday Brazilian Portuguese, some even more common alternatives are:

• O pacote chegou há pouco.
• O pacote acabou de chegar.

Your sentence is perfectly good, clear, and idiomatic. It just sounds a little fuller because of pouco tempo.