Se a babá vier cedo, ela vai levar a menina à creche.

Because after se when you are talking about a possible future condition, Portuguese normally uses the future subjunctive.

So:

• Se a babá vier cedo... = If the nanny comes early...
• not Se a babá vem cedo... in this context

This is one of the most important patterns in Portuguese:

• Se eu tiver tempo, eu vou. = If I have time, I’ll go.
• Se ele puder, ele ajuda. = If he can, he helps / he’ll help.
• Se nós formos cedo, chegamos a tempo. = If we go early, we’ll arrive on time.

The verb vir has this future subjunctive form:

• vier

So Se a babá vier cedo is the natural way to say If the nanny comes early.

Vier is the future subjunctive form of the verb vir (to come).

Here are a few useful forms of vir:

• infinitive: vir
• present: vem = comes
• past: veio = came
• future subjunctive: vier = comes / should come / if ... comes

A quick example comparison:

• Ela vem cedo. = She comes early / She is coming early.
• Se ela vier cedo... = If she comes early...

English does not really show this tense with a special verb form, but Portuguese does.

That a is the definite article meaning the.

• a babá = the nanny
• a menina = the girl
• a creche = the daycare center / nursery

Portuguese uses definite articles more often than English does. In this sentence, a babá sounds natural because we are talking about a specific nanny, not just any nanny.

Compare:

• Se uma babá vier cedo... = If a nanny comes early / if one nanny comes early
• Se a babá vier cedo... = If the nanny comes early

In Brazilian Portuguese, ir + infinitive is a very common way to talk about the future.

So:

• ela vai levar = she is going to take / she will take

This is often more common in everyday speech than the simple future:

• ela levará

Both are correct, but they feel different:

• ela vai levar = very natural in conversation
• ela levará = more formal, written, or less common in everyday speech

So this sentence uses the most natural spoken pattern.

Yes, absolutely.

• Ela vai levar a menina à creche.
• Ela levará a menina à creche.

Both mean the same thing.

The difference is mostly style:

• vai levar = more conversational, more common in spoken Brazilian Portuguese
• levará = more formal or written

If you are learning everyday Brazilian Portuguese, vai levar is usually the better choice to sound natural.

Levar means to take, usually meaning to move someone or something to another place.

In this sentence:

• levar a menina à creche = take the girl to daycare

Trazer means to bring, usually toward the speaker or toward some reference point.

So:

• levar = take away/to somewhere
• trazer = bring here/toward somewhere

Examples:

• Vou levar meu filho à escola. = I’m going to take my son to school.
• Você pode trazer os documentos amanhã? = Can you bring the documents tomorrow?

Here, the nanny is taking the girl to daycare, so levar is the correct verb.

Because à is a contraction of:

• a = to
• a = the

So:

• levar ... a + a creche
• becomes
• levar ... à creche

This happens because the verb phrase requires the preposition a before the destination, and creche already has the feminine article a.

So:

• ao mercado = to the market (a + o)
• à escola = to the school (a + a)
• à creche = to the daycare (a + a)

The accent in à is a grave accent and marks this contraction.

Because the grave accent in à is not about pronunciation stress. It marks crase, the contraction of two a sounds:

• preposition a
• article a

So à means to the when the noun is feminine singular.

Examples:

• Vou à praia. = I’m going to the beach.
• Cheguei à escola cedo. = I arrived at the school early.
• Entreguei o livro à professora. = I gave the book to the teacher.

This is different from the acute accent in words like babá, where the accent shows stress.

So in this sentence:

• babá: accent shows pronunciation stress
• à: accent shows contraction

Grammatically, ela could in theory refer to either feminine noun:

• a babá
• a menina

But in real context, the natural interpretation is the nanny.

Why?

Because of meaning:

• If the nanny comes early, she is going to take the girl to daycare.

It makes logical sense that the nanny is the one taking the girl.

Portuguese often allows this kind of pronoun reference when context makes the meaning clear. If a speaker wanted to avoid any ambiguity, they could repeat the noun:

• Se a babá vier cedo, a babá vai levar a menina à creche.

But that sounds repetitive. So using ela is normal and natural.

Portuguese often repeats nouns where English might use a pronoun, especially when it helps clarity.

Here:

• ela vai levar a menina à creche

The speaker uses a menina instead of a pronoun like ela, because there are already two female people in the sentence:

• the nanny
• the girl

If you said:

• Se a babá vier cedo, ela vai levá-la à creche.

that is also correct, and it means:

• If the nanny comes early, she will take her to daycare.

But now you have ela and -la, both referring to female people, so it may feel slightly less clear to a learner or in some contexts.

Using a menina is very clear and natural.

Yes.

• Se a babá vier cedo, ela vai levar a menina à creche.
• Se a babá vier cedo, ela vai levá-la à creche.

Both are correct.

The second version uses the direct object pronoun -la attached to the infinitive levar:

• levar + a → levá-la

Why does it change form?

• the final r drops
• a hyphen is added
• the vowel gets an accent: levá-la

This is standard written Portuguese.

In spoken Brazilian Portuguese, many people prefer the full noun or different pronoun structures in everyday conversation, because they sound more natural in speech than these attached object pronouns.

Cedo means early.

In this sentence:

• vier cedo = comes early

It is an adverb here, describing when the nanny comes.

Examples:

• Ela chegou cedo. = She arrived early.
• Acordei cedo hoje. = I woke up early today.
• Se ele sair cedo, pega menos trânsito. = If he leaves early, he hits less traffic.

So Se a babá vier cedo means If the nanny comes early.

Yes, you can move things around somewhat, but the given order is the most straightforward and natural.

The sentence is built like this:

• Se a babá vier cedo = conditional clause
• ela vai levar a menina à creche = main clause

This is very common:

• Se chover, eu fico em casa. = If it rains, I’ll stay home.
• Se ele ligar, me avise. = If he calls, let me know.

You could also reverse the clauses:

• Ela vai levar a menina à creche se a babá vier cedo.

That is also correct and natural.

The version with se first often emphasizes the condition a little more.

Yes. When the if-clause comes first, Portuguese normally uses a comma before the main clause.

So:

• Se a babá vier cedo, ela vai levar a menina à creche.

If the main clause comes first, the comma is often not used:

• Ela vai levar a menina à creche se a babá vier cedo.

This works similarly to English punctuation in many cases.

Babá is pronounced with stress on the last syllable: ba-BÁ.

The acute accent in babá shows that the final syllable is stressed.

Without the accent, Portuguese spelling rules would suggest a different stress pattern, so the accent is necessary.

This accent is different from the one in à:

• babá: acute accent, shows stress
• à: grave accent, shows contraction

So the two accents do different jobs.

Menina usually means girl, often a young girl or child.

In this sentence, because she is being taken to creche (daycare), we understand that she is a small child.

Useful comparisons:

• menina = girl
• garota = girl, often a bit more general or informal
• filha = daughter

So:

• a menina = the girl
• a filha = the daughter

If the speaker wanted to make the family relationship explicit, they could say:

• ela vai levar a filha à creche = she is going to take her daughter to daycare

But a menina just identifies her as a girl, not necessarily as someone’s daughter.

Creche is a place where very young children are cared for during the day. In English, possible translations include:

• daycare
• day care center
• nursery (depending on the variety of English and context)

In Brazil, creche typically refers to care for babies and very young children, younger than regular school age.

So in this sentence:

• levar a menina à creche = take the girl to daycare

Yes.

In English, those two are slightly different forms, but in many contexts they mean almost the same thing. In Portuguese:

• vai levar

can naturally correspond to either:

• is going to take
• will take

Which English translation sounds best depends on context and style, not on a strong grammar difference in Portuguese.

So the sentence could be understood as:

• If the nanny comes early, she is going to take the girl to daycare.
• If the nanny comes early, she will take the girl to daycare.

Both are fine.