Escute o professor com atenção.

Escute is the imperative form used with você in Brazilian Portuguese.

The verb is escutar. For commands with você, Portuguese usually uses the same form as the present subjunctive:

• que você escute
• command: Escute!

So Escute o professor com atenção means something like Listen to the teacher carefully when speaking to one person in the você form.

If you were using tu, the command would normally be:

• Escuta o professor com atenção.

In many parts of Brazil, você is much more common than tu, so escute is very natural.

It is understood and left out.

Portuguese often omits subject pronouns when they are clear from the verb form or the situation. In commands, this is especially common.

So:

• Escute o professor com atenção.

really means:

• (Você) escute o professor com atenção.

But saying você here is usually unnecessary.

Grammatically, it is an imperative sentence, so it is a command form.

However, in real life, the tone depends on context and voice:

• said firmly: a direct command
• said gently: a request or instruction
• in a classroom or guidebook: advice/instruction

So the grammar gives you command form, but the actual force can range from strict to polite depending on how it is said.

Because o professor means the teacher/professor.

Portuguese uses definite articles very often, including before many nouns that refer to specific people or roles. In this sentence, the speaker is referring to a particular teacher, so o is natural.

• o professor = the teacher / the professor

In English, we sometimes omit the article in expressions where Portuguese keeps it, but here both languages normally use a definite sense.

Both can often mean to hear or to listen, and in everyday Brazilian Portuguese they overlap a lot.

A common learner-friendly distinction is:

• ouvir = to hear / to listen
• escutar = to listen, often with a sense of paying attention

So in this sentence, escute o professor fits well because the idea is active listening.

That said, Brazilians also very naturally say:

• Ouça o professor com atenção.

This means basically the same thing.

Com atenção literally means with attention, but in natural English it corresponds to carefully or attentively.

Portuguese often uses this kind of expression where English prefers a single adverb.

So:

• Escute o professor com atenção.
• literally: Listen to the teacher with attention.
• natural English: Listen to the teacher carefully / attentively.

You could also say atentamente, but com atenção is extremely common and natural.

Not exactly.

In Brazilian Portuguese, professor/professora is used much more broadly than English professor. It can mean:

• school teacher
• instructor
• college teacher
• professor in the university sense

So in many contexts, o professor is better translated as the teacher, not necessarily the professor in the English academic sense.

Yes. O professor is the direct object of escute.

The action is listen to the teacher, so the person being listened to is the object.

A useful thing to notice is that Portuguese does not use a preposition here the way English does:

• English: listen to the teacher
• Portuguese: escutar o professor

So with escutar, the noun usually comes directly after the verb.

Yes.

You could say:

• Escute-o com atenção.

This means Listen to him/it carefully, with -o referring to o professor.

This kind of pronoun attachment is grammatically correct, but in everyday spoken Brazilian Portuguese, people often prefer other strategies, such as repeating the noun or restructuring the sentence. Still, it is useful to recognize escute-o when reading.

If you are addressing more than one person, the most common Brazilian Portuguese form is with vocês:

• Escutem o professor com atenção.

That means Listen to the teacher carefully said to a group.

Other related forms:

• one person (você): Escute o professor com atenção.
• more than one person (vocês): Escutem o professor com atenção.

You make it negative with não:

• Não escute o professor com atenção.

This means Don’t listen to the teacher carefully.

In Portuguese, negative commands use the subjunctive-based form, so the pattern matches what you already see in escute.

Atenção is pronounced approximately ah-ten-SOWN, with a nasal ending.

A few important points:

• ç makes an s sound, so atenção has s, not k
• ão is a nasal sound, very common in Portuguese
• the written accent helps show the stressed syllable

So the stress falls on the last syllable:

• a-ten-ÇÃO

That final ão is one of the trickier sounds for English speakers, but it becomes easier with listening practice.

Yes, but the original order is the most neutral and natural:

• Escute o professor com atenção.

You might also hear:

• Escute com atenção o professor.

This is possible, but it sounds more marked or stylistically different. For a learner, the original version is the best model to follow.

Only the noun phrase changes:

• Escute a professora com atenção.

Here:

• a professora = the female teacher

Everything else stays the same.