A criança tentou esconder o brinquedo, mas a mãe logo descobriu onde ele estava.

Because criança is a grammatically feminine noun in Portuguese, so it normally takes a and feminine agreement:

• a criança
• a criança pequena
• a criança estava cansada

This is about the word’s grammatical gender, not necessarily the child’s real-life sex.

In this sentence, ele does not refer to a criança. It refers to o brinquedo, which is masculine.

This is a very common structure in Portuguese:

• tentar + infinitive

So:

• tentou esconder = tried to hide

The first verb, tentou, is conjugated. The second verb, esconder, stays in the infinitive.

Other examples:

• Ela tentou sair. = She tried to leave.
• Nós tentamos ajudar. = We tried to help.

Because tentar is normally followed directly by an infinitive in Portuguese:

• tentar fazer
• tentar dormir
• tentar esconder

So tentou esconder is the normal pattern.

An English speaker may expect something like tried to hide, but Portuguese does not need an equivalent of to here.

Because esconder here means to hide something.

• esconder o brinquedo = to hide the toy

But se esconder means to hide oneself:

• A criança tentou se esconder. = The child tried to hide.

So the sentence is about hiding the toy, not the child hiding themself.

Here logo means soon, quickly, or before long.

So:

• a mãe logo descobriu = the mother soon found out

This is a very common meaning of logo in Brazilian Portuguese.

Important: it does not mean the English noun logo.

Portuguese usually uses articles much more often than English does.

So it is very normal to say:

• a mãe
• o pai
• a menina
• o cachorro

Even with family words, Brazilian Portuguese often uses the article:

• A mãe chegou.
• O pai saiu.

Dropping the article can happen in some contexts, but a mãe is the most natural form here.

Descobrir can mean to discover, to find out, or sometimes to uncover.

In this sentence, descobriu onde ele estava means the mother found out where it was.

It is not necessarily the same as physically picking up the toy. The focus is on learning its location.

Onde means where.

So:

• descobriu onde ele estava = found out where it was

This is a very natural way to introduce a clause about location.

Compare:

• Eu sei onde ele mora. = I know where he lives.
• Ela viu onde estava a chave. = She saw where the key was.

Ele refers to o brinquedo.

That is because brinquedo is masculine singular:

• o brinquedo
• ele

So:

• onde ele estava = where it was

It does not refer to a criança, because criança is grammatically feminine, and the sentence is talking about the hidden object.

Because estar is used for location.

So when you say where something or someone is/was, you usually use estar:

• O brinquedo estava no armário.
• A criança estava no quarto.

Ser is generally not used for normal physical location.

So:

• onde ele estava = where it was
• not onde ele era

Because estava is the imperfect, which works well for an ongoing state or background situation in the past.

In this sentence, the toy’s location is treated as a state that was already in place when the mother found it out.

So the timeline is roughly:

• the child hid the toy
• the toy was somewhere
• the mother found out that location

That is why estava sounds natural.

Esteve is possible in Portuguese, but it usually feels more bounded or event-like, and it would sound less natural here.

This is a very common contrast in Portuguese past tenses.

• tentou = a completed action
• descobriu = another completed action
• estava = a background state in progress

So the sentence combines:

• main events: tried, found out
• background condition: was

This is exactly the kind of tense combination learners see all the time in Portuguese storytelling.

Yes, that is possible.

These are all understandable:

• mas a mãe logo descobriu
• mas logo a mãe descobriu
• mas a mãe descobriu logo

But they do not all feel exactly the same in rhythm or emphasis.

In this sentence, mas a mãe logo descobriu sounds very natural and smooth in Brazilian Portuguese. It places logo close to the verb and emphasizes that the mother found out quickly.

Because onde ele estava already means where it was, and the exact location can stay unstated if it is understood from context.

For example, the full idea could be:

• A mãe descobriu onde ele estava escondido.
• A mãe descobriu onde ele estava.

The shorter version is perfectly natural. Portuguese often leaves out information that is already clear from context.

Yes, but it would mean something slightly different.

• A mãe encontrou o brinquedo. = The mother found the toy.
• A mãe descobriu onde ele estava. = The mother found out where it was.

The original sentence focuses more on discovering the toy’s location. Using encontrou focuses more on actually finding it.

Sometimes both are true in real life, but the wording highlights different things.