O oleiro leu o pedido.

Because the sentence has two masculine singular nouns, and each one has its own definite article:

• o oleiro = the potter
• o pedido = the request / the order

In Portuguese, just like in English, both the subject and the object can take the if they are definite. Here, o is the masculine singular form of the.

So the structure is:

• O oleiro = subject
• leu = verb
• o pedido = direct object

Leu is the 3rd person singular of the preterite of the verb ler, which means to read.

So:

• ler = to read
• ele/ela leu = he/she read

In this sentence, leu means read in the completed past sense: the action happened and is finished.

Because leu and lia express different kinds of past action.

• leu = preterite, for a completed action
  
  • O oleiro leu o pedido. = The potter read the request.
• lia = imperfect, for an ongoing, repeated, or background past action
  
  • O oleiro lia o pedido quando... = The potter was reading the request when...

So in your sentence, leu is used because it presents the action as a whole, finished event.

In European Portuguese, leu is pronounced roughly like lay-oo said quickly as one syllable, though that English approximation is not perfect.

A more technical pronunciation is approximately /lew/.

A few notes:

• It is one syllable
• The eu combination here sounds like a diphthong
• The l is clear, not like English dark l at the end of a word

Not always. Pedido can mean different things depending on context, most commonly:

• request
• order
• application or petition in some formal contexts

So o pedido could be:

• a request someone made
• an order in a shop or restaurant
• a formal request in administrative language

The exact meaning depends on the situation.

Oleiro means potter, someone who makes pottery or works with clay.

It is a perfectly correct word, but it is not an everyday high-frequency word like homem, mulher, or casa. It is more specific vocabulary.

It is also useful because it clearly shows normal noun patterns in Portuguese:

• o oleiro = the male potter
• a oleira = the female potter

Because Portuguese often leaves out the subject pronoun when the verb form already shows who the subject is.

Here, leu is a 3rd person singular form, and the noun o oleiro is already stated, so there is no need to add ele.

Portuguese usually prefers:

• O oleiro leu o pedido.

Rather than:

• O oleiro ele leu o pedido. ❌

You could say Ele leu o pedido, but only if the subject had already been established in context.

Yes, here it is the standard subject + verb + object order:

• O oleiro = subject
• leu = verb
• o pedido = object

So it matches English very closely:

• The potter read the request.

Portuguese can sometimes change word order for emphasis or style, but this sentence uses the most neutral and common pattern.

You can tell from the article o:

• o oleiro = masculine singular
• a oleira = feminine singular

Also, many nouns ending in -eiro are masculine, with a corresponding feminine in -eira.

Examples:

• o padeiro / a padeira
• o jardineiro / a jardineira
• o oleiro / a oleira

It would become:

• Os oleiros leram os pedidos.

Changes:

• o → os for masculine plural
• oleiro → oleiros
• leu → leram
• pedido → pedidos

So:

• O oleiro leu o pedido. = The potter read the request.
• Os oleiros leram os pedidos. = The potters read the requests.

Yes. Ler is not completely regular in the preterite, so leu is a form you need to learn.

Some key forms are:

• eu li
• tu leste
• ele/ela leu
• nós lemos
• vós lestes
• eles/elas leram

So leu is not formed in a simple fully regular way from the infinitive. It is one of those common verb forms worth memorising.

Yes, but the meaning would usually become less specific.

• O oleiro leu o pedido. = The potter read the request.
• O oleiro leu pedido. = not natural in this context

In this sentence, Portuguese normally wants o pedido because it refers to a specific request or order. Leaving out the article here would usually sound wrong or incomplete.

So o pedido is the natural choice.

In both cases, o is pronounced together smoothly with the following word:

• o oleiro
• o pedido

With o oleiro, the two vowel sounds meet, so in natural speech they flow into each other. European Portuguese often links words very smoothly, so the boundary may sound less separate than an English speaker expects.

Even so, they are still two words:

• o = the
• oleiro = potter

There is no contraction here, because contraction usually happens with a preposition + article, not with article + noun.