Conseguimos orientar-nos com a bússola.

Because Portuguese often leaves out subject pronouns when the verb ending already shows who the subject is.

• conseguimos already means we manage / we managed / we are able
• so nós is not necessary

You can say Nós conseguimos orientar-nos com a bússola, but that adds emphasis, contrast, or clarity rather than basic meaning.

Conseguimos can be either:

• present indicative: we manage / we are able
• simple past (pretérito perfeito): we managed

This form is the same in both tenses for nós, so only context tells you which one is meant.

With conseguir + infinitive, the idea is often to manage to or to be able to do something.

In European Portuguese, clitic pronouns like nos usually come after the infinitive, attached with a hyphen:

• orientar-nos

This is the normal European Portuguese pattern here.

In Brazilian Portuguese, nos orientar is much more common.

So for Portugal Portuguese, Conseguimos orientar-nos... sounds natural and standard.

Nos is the unstressed pronoun for us / ourselves.

Here it goes with the pronominal verb orientar-se, which means something like:

• to orient oneself
• to find one’s bearings
• to find one’s way

So orientar-nos means to orient ourselves or more naturally to find our way.

Because in European Portuguese, when a clitic pronoun is attached after a verb form like an infinitive, it is written with a hyphen.

Examples:

• orientar-nos
• levantar-se
• ver-te

So the hyphen is simply the normal spelling rule for this structure.

Com is used to show the instrument or means used to do something.

So:

• com a bússola = with the compass / using the compass

It tells you what helped us orient ourselves.

Portuguese often uses the definite article where English might not.

So com a bússola sounds natural in Portuguese, even if English might sometimes just say using a compass or with a compass depending on context.

Without the article, com bússola would sound less natural in normal everyday Portuguese.

Yes. Bússola is a feminine noun, so it takes:

• a bússola

That is why the phrase is com a bússola, not com o bússola.

The accent shows that the stress falls on the first syllable:

• BÚS-so-la

So the stressed part is bú.

For an English speaker, that helps avoid putting the stress later in the word.

Yes, but the given order is neutral and natural:

• Conseguimos orientar-nos com a bússola.

You could also say:

• Com a bússola, conseguimos orientar-nos.

That version gives a little more emphasis to with the compass.

Yes, mainly in pronoun placement.

In Brazil, a very common version would be:

• Conseguimos nos orientar com a bússola.

In Portugal, orientar-nos is the more natural choice. The meaning is the same; the difference is mainly grammatical style and standard usage in each variety.

Yes, there is a small difference.

• conseguimos orientar-nos = we manage to find our way / we are able to find our way
• podemos orientar-nos = we can find our way

Conseguimos often suggests success or ability in practice, while podemos is a more direct idea of possibility or ability.

So conseguimos can sound a bit more like we’re able to do it successfully.