Para não coçar a barriga, a criança vestiu outra camisa.

Para não means so as not to, in order not to, or more naturally in English, to avoid doing something.

So:

• para = for / to / in order to
• não = not

In this sentence, Para não coçar a barriga gives the purpose of the action that follows:

• Para não coçar a barriga, a criança vestiu outra camisa.
• To avoid scratching their belly, the child put on another shirt.

It is very common in Portuguese to use para + infinitive to express purpose.

In Portuguese, when talking about scratching, washing, raising, or moving body parts, it is very common to use the body part directly as the object:

• coçar a barriga = scratch the belly / scratch one’s belly
• lavar as mãos = wash one’s hands
• levantar a cabeça = raise one’s head

Portuguese often does not need a reflexive pronoun where English might imply possession.

So coçar a barriga is the most natural wording here.

You might hear other structures in some contexts, but coçar a barriga is completely standard and idiomatic.

Portuguese usually uses the definite article with body parts where English often uses a possessive:

• coçar a barriga literally = scratch the belly
• natural English = scratch their belly

This is very normal in Portuguese. Compare:

• Ela fechou os olhos. = She closed her eyes.
• Ele levantou a mão. = He raised his hand.

So a barriga does not sound strange in Portuguese; it is the expected way to say it.

It could say sua barriga, but that is less natural here unless you specifically want to emphasize whose belly it is.

Portuguese often prefers:

• coçar a barriga

rather than

• coçar sua barriga

Using sua can sometimes sound more explicit than necessary. It can also occasionally create ambiguity, because seu/sua can mean his, her, your, and in some contexts even their, depending on the situation.

So the version with a barriga is simpler and more idiomatic.

Portuguese uses definite articles more often than English.

Here, a criança means the child—a specific child already known in the context, or the child being talked about in the sentence.

English can sometimes omit or handle articles differently, but in Portuguese this is very normal:

• A criança vestiu outra camisa. = The child put on another shirt.

Without the article, criança would usually not work well here as a normal subject in standard usage.

Because criança is a grammatically feminine noun in Portuguese, regardless of the child’s actual sex.

So you say:

• a criança
• uma criança

even if the child is male.

This is a good example of how grammatical gender and biological sex are not always the same thing.

Vestir can mean both:

• to wear
• to put on / dress

depending on context.

In this sentence, vestiu outra camisa means the child put on another shirt.

In Brazilian Portuguese, this is very natural. Some related possibilities are:

• vestir uma camisa = put on a shirt / wear a shirt
• colocar uma camisa = put on a shirt

Both can work, but vestir is perfectly normal here.

In Portuguese, outro/outra often appears without an article:

• outra camisa = another shirt

This is the most straightforward and common form here.

You can also hear uma outra camisa, but that often adds a bit of emphasis or nuance, depending on context. For a basic sentence like this, outra camisa is the most neutral choice.

Vestiu is the pretérito perfeito (simple past / preterite) of vestir.

• eu vesti
• você/ele/ela vestiu

It is used because the sentence describes a completed action:

• the child put on another shirt

If the sentence were describing an ongoing or habitual past action, Portuguese might use a different tense, such as the imperfect:

• vestia = used to put on / was putting on

But here the action is a single completed event, so vestiu is the right tense.

Yes. In this sentence, the understood subject of coçar is the same as the subject of the main clause: a criança.

So the meaning is:

• The child put on another shirt so that the child would not scratch their belly.

Portuguese often leaves that repeated subject unspoken when it is clear from context.

This is very common with infinitive constructions after para:

• Para descansar, ele foi para casa.
• To rest, he went home.

The person who wants to rest is understood to be the same person who went home.

Yes. Portuguese allows different word orders, especially with purpose phrases like this.

For example:

• A criança vestiu outra camisa para não coçar a barriga.

This means the same thing and may sound even more natural in many contexts.

The original sentence puts the purpose first for emphasis:

• Para não coçar a barriga, a criança vestiu outra camisa.

So both are correct; the difference is mainly one of focus and style.

Usually, yes, coçar means to scratch or to itch/scratch at depending on context.

A useful distinction:

• coçar = to scratch
• ter coceira = to feel itchy / have an itch

For example:

• Ela coçou o braço. = She scratched her arm.
• Minha pele está com coceira. = My skin is itchy.

In your sentence, coçar a barriga clearly means to scratch the belly.

Não is usually pronounced roughly like nowng or nãw, with a nasal sound. There is no exact English equivalent.

A few tips:

• The ã is nasal, so air comes through the nose.
• The final o is not a full English oh sound.
• Try saying something close to naung, but smoothly and with nasal resonance.

This word is one of the most important pronunciation patterns in Portuguese, because nasal vowels are very common.

In Brazilian Portuguese, criança is pronounced approximately like:

• cree-AHN-sa

A few details:

• cri sounds like cree
• the stressed syllable is an
• ã is nasal
• ç sounds like s

So the middle part has that nasal vowel again, similar to não.

Yes, very naturally.

Outra camisa means another shirt, so it strongly suggests that the child was already wearing one shirt and then put on a different one, or chose a different one.

The sentence does not have to spell out the earlier shirt. The idea is simply that the child used a different shirt as a solution to the problem.

So the implication of changing shirts is built into outra.