Breakdown of A placa dizia que havia pedágio na frente e também avisava sobre engarrafamento.
Questions & Answers about A placa dizia que havia pedágio na frente e também avisava sobre engarrafamento.
Because dizia and avisava are in the imperfect past. In this sentence, that gives the idea of what the sign said / was saying and was warning about as a general statement, not as one single completed action.
With signs, notices, and written text, Portuguese often uses the imperfect this way:
- A placa dizia... = The sign said...
- O bilhete dizia... = The note said...
Using disse or avisou would sound more like a specific completed event:
- A placa disse... is grammatically possible, but much less natural here.
So dizia and avisava fit the idea of ongoing written information on a sign.
Here, havia means there was / there were.
It comes from the verb haver, which is often used in Portuguese to express existence:
- Havia pedágio = There was a toll
- Há um problema = There is a problem
This is a very common structure in formal or neutral Portuguese.
In everyday Brazilian Portuguese, many speakers would also say:
- tinha pedágio na frente
That is very common in speech, even though havia is more formal or standard in writing.