Learn Hardcore Portuguese (Portugal): Ela fica orgulhosa quando o treinador elogia o esforço da equipa. - She feels proud when the trainer praises the team’s effort.

Ela fica orgulhosa = She gets / becomes proud (every time that happens).
Ela é orgulhosa = She is a proud person (as a permanent characteristic, sometimes with a negative nuance like “vain” or “full of herself”).

So fica orgulhosa focuses on the emotional reaction in that situation, not on her character.

Could I use está orgulhosa instead of fica orgulhosa?

You could, but the meaning changes slightly:

Ela fica orgulhosa quando… – The emphasis is on the change of state: she goes from not proud to proud at that moment.
Ela está orgulhosa quando… – Sounds more like describing her state at that moment, less on the transition.

In practice, ficar is the most natural verb here because you’re talking about what happens (repeatedly) when the coach praises the team’s effort.

Why is orgulhosa feminine?

Adjectives in Portuguese agree with the gender and number of the noun or pronoun they describe.

Subject: ela (she) → feminine singular
Adjective: orgulhosa (feminine singular of orgulhoso)

If the subject were masculine, you’d say:

Ele fica orgulhoso quando o treinador elogia o esforço da equipa.
(He gets proud when the coach praises the team’s effort.)

What’s the difference between treinador and coach? Is there a feminine form?

Treinador is the normal European Portuguese word for coach, especially in sports.

o treinador = the (male) coach
a treinadora = the (female) coach

You may also hear técnico in sports, especially in football (soccer), but treinador is the safest general word for “coach”. In European Portuguese you almost never use the English word coach in this context.

Why is it elogia and not something like está a elogiar?

Elogia is the simple present of elogiar (to praise) and here it expresses a habitual action:

quando o treinador elogia o esforço…
= whenever / every time the coach praises the effort…

Using está a elogiar (present progressive) would sound like you’re focusing on right now, a specific moment:

Ela fica orgulhosa quando o treinador está a elogiar o esforço da equipa.
→ She gets proud when the coach is (in the middle of) praising the team’s effort.

For general, repeated situations, the plain present elogia is the natural choice.

Why is it quando o treinador elogia and not quando o treinador elogiar?

Both are possible, but they’re used in different contexts:

Quando o treinador elogia o esforço da equipa, ela fica orgulhosa.
→ Describes a habit: whenever he praises them, she gets proud. (present indicative)
Quando o treinador elogiar o esforço da equipa, ela vai ficar orgulhosa.
→ Refers to a specific future situation: when the coach (eventually) praises the team’s effort, she will get proud. (future subjunctive elogiar
- future in the main clause)

In your sentence, the idea is habitual, so elogia is correct.

Why do we say o esforço da equipa and not just esforço da equipa?

Portuguese uses definite articles much more often than English.

O esforço da equipa literally means the effort of the team, and the article o signals that this effort is definite/specific – the effort we’re talking about in this context (their effort in games or training).

Without the article:

elogia esforço da equipa

would sound incomplete or wrong in standard Portuguese. In most cases, when you have a concrete noun like esforço used in this way, you’ll need the article: o esforço.

What’s the role of da in da equipa?

Da is a contraction:

de (of) + a (the, feminine singular) → da

So:

o esforço da equipa = the effort of the team

The structure [noun] de [noun] is how Portuguese usually expresses possession / association:

o carro do treinador = the coach’s car
o apoio dos fãs = the fans’ support

Is equipa always feminine, and is it specific to Portugal?

Yes, in European Portuguese equipa is feminine:

a equipa, da equipa, com a equipa, etc.

And yes, equipa is the usual word in Portugal for “team” (sports, work, etc.).

In Brazilian Portuguese, the normal word is time (pronounced roughly “chee-mee”) for sports teams:

PT: a equipa de futebol
BR: o time de futebol

But in European Portuguese, equipa is the standard word.

Could the sentence be Ela fica orgulhosa do esforço da equipa? What would that mean?

Yes, that is a different (but common) sentence:

Ela fica orgulhosa do esforço da equipa.
= She gets proud of the team’s effort.

Your original sentence:

Ela fica orgulhosa quando o treinador elogia o esforço da equipa.
= She gets proud when the coach praises the team’s effort.

So:

In your sentence, the cause of her pride is the coach’s praise.
In fica orgulhosa do esforço…, the cause is the effort itself.

Both use orgulhosa de (proud of), but the original one wraps the cause into a quando-clause.

Is the word order fixed, or could I move things around?

The neutral word order in Portuguese is Subject – Verb – Object, just like English:

Ela (subject) fica (verb) orgulhosa (complement)
o treinador (subject) elogia (verb) o esforço da equipa (object)

You can move the quando-clause to the beginning:

Quando o treinador elogia o esforço da equipa, ela fica orgulhosa.

But you cannot naturally move o esforço da equipa before elogia in the middle of the clause (like English poetic inversion); something like:

✗ …quando o esforço da equipa o treinador elogia

sounds very unnatural in normal speech or writing.

How do you pronounce orgulhosa, treinador, and equipa in European Portuguese?

Approximate pronunciations (European Portuguese):

orgulhosa → [oɾ-gu-ʎó-za]
- r at the start is a guttural sound (in many accents)
- lh is the palatal ʎ (like the lli in million in many English accents)
treinador → [trej-na-DOR]
- ei = [ej], like ay in day
- final -dor sounds like [dor], with a soft, often guttural r
equipa → [e-KI-pa]
- stress on KI
- qu before i is pronounced [k] (the u is not pronounced)

These are rough guides; actual sound will vary slightly by regional accent, but this is standard European Portuguese.