Eu disse alô.

I

Breakdown of Eu disse alô.

• dizer: to say
• alô: hello on the phone

Questions & Answers about Eu disse alô.

What does disse mean grammatically?

Disse is the preterite (simple past) form of the verb dizer = to say / to tell.

In this sentence, disse means said.

A useful thing to know is that disse can mean:

• I said
• he said
• she said
• you said (formal você)

So the pronoun eu helps make it clear that the meaning here is I said.

Why is eu included? Can Portuguese drop it?

Yes. Brazilian Portuguese often allows the subject pronoun to be omitted, so Disse alô can also be possible in context.

But here eu is useful because disse is ambiguous: it could mean I said or he/she/you said. Adding eu removes that ambiguity.

So:

• Eu disse alô. = clearly I said hello.
• Disse alô. = Said hello, but the subject depends on context.

What verb is disse from, and is it irregular?