Learn Hardcore Portuguese (Portugal): A Ana pediu‑lhe um exemplo com esse verbo e ele escreveu uma frase no quadro. - Ana asked him for an example with that verb and he wrote a sentence on the board.

In Brazilian Portuguese, this sounds regional or marked, but in Portugal it’s normal and quite frequent. You can usually omit the article in more formal or careful writing, but A Ana is perfectly standard in Portugal.

So A Ana pediu‑lhe… is “Ana asked him/her…”, with the usual European-Portuguese article before the name.

What does the pronoun lhe mean in pediu‑lhe? Why not o or a?

Lhe is an indirect object pronoun meaning “to him / to her / to you (formal)”.

The verb pedir in this sense is “to ask (someone) for (something)”, so its structure is:

pedir algo a alguém = to ask someone for something

In the sentence:

A Ana pediu‑lhe um exemplo…
Literally: “Ana asked to him/her for an example…”

Here:

um exemplo is the direct object (what she asked for)
lhe is the indirect object (the person she asked)

Pronouns like o / a refer to direct objects (“him / her / it” as the thing), so they would not be correct here. You cannot say pediu‑o um exemplo for “asked him for an example”; that would be ungrammatical in Portuguese.

Why is lhe attached to the verb with a hyphen (pediu‑lhe)?

In European Portuguese, when certain unstressed pronouns (like me, te, lhe, nos, vos, o, a, se, etc.) come after the verb, they are written joined to the verb with a hyphen. This is called enclisis.

pediu
- lhe → pediu‑lhe
escreveu
- me → escreveu‑me

The pronoun comes after the verb (and is hyphenated) here because:

The verb is in a simple tense (preterite pediu).
There is no word before it that forces the pronoun to come before the verb (like não, que, se, quando, já, etc.).

So A Ana pediu‑lhe… is the normal neutral form. If something did trigger the pronoun to come before the verb, you would get:

A Ana não lhe pediu um exemplo. (“Ana didn’t ask him/her for an example.”)

Here it’s lhe pediu, without hyphen, because the pronoun is before the verb.

Could we also say A Ana lhe pediu um exemplo or A Ana pediu um exemplo a ele? Are they all correct?

A Ana pediu‑lhe um exemplo… – This is the most typical European Portuguese style: pronoun after the verb with a hyphen.
A Ana pediu um exemplo a ele. – Also correct. This uses a full prepositional phrase (a ele) instead of a clitic pronoun (lhe). It can sound a bit more emphatic or explicit: “Ana asked him for an example.”
A Ana lhe pediu um exemplo. – This word order (pronoun before the verb without any trigger word) is more natural in Brazilian Portuguese. In European Portuguese, outside of special contexts, A Ana lhe pediu… sounds unusual or marked.

So:

In Portugal, the preferred neutral form is A Ana pediu‑lhe um exemplo… or A Ana pediu um exemplo a ele.
In Brazil, A Ana lhe pediu um exemplo… or Ana pediu um exemplo para ele. is more typical.

Why is esse used in esse verbo and not este or aquele?

Portuguese has three main demonstratives:

este / esta – “this” (near the speaker, or about something that will be mentioned)
esse / essa – “that” (near the listener, or about something that has just been mentioned)
aquele / aquela – “that (over there)” (far from both, or more distant/remote in time or context)

In com esse verbo, esse usually refers to:

a verb that the other person has just mentioned, or
a verb that both people know they’re talking about, but that is not “new” in the conversation.

So it’s like:

“with that verb (you just mentioned)” or “with that verb we are talking about”.

You would use este verbo if you were introducing the verb right now, or pointing at it in front of you in a more “this one here” way. Aquele verbo would sound more distant: some other verb not in the immediate focus, or perhaps in another part of the text.

Why is the preposition com used in com esse verbo? Could we say sobre esse verbo or desse verbo instead?

Com esse verbo literally means “with that verb” and is very natural in Portuguese in this kind of request:

um exemplo com esse verbo = “an example using that verb”.

Alternatives:

um exemplo sobre esse verbo – more like “an example about that verb / about that topic.” This shifts the meaning slightly to “about” as a subject, not simply “using that verb in a sentence.”
um exemplo desse verbo – would normally be understood as “an example of that verb,” which sounds odd in Portuguese here; we usually say um exemplo com esse verbo when we mean “use that verb in a sentence.”

So for “an example that uses that verb in a sentence,” um exemplo com esse verbo is the idiomatic choice.

Why is the subject pronoun ele expressed in e ele escreveu? Could we omit it?

Portuguese is a “pro‑drop” language, meaning that subject pronouns (eu, tu, ele, nós, etc.) are often omitted when the subject is clear from the verb ending or context.

Escreveu uma frase no quadro.
could mean “He/She wrote a sentence on the board.”

In this particular sentence, the pronoun ele is included for clarity and contrast, because we have two different people:

A Ana pediu‑lhe… – Ana did the asking.
e ele escreveu… – he did the writing.

If we omitted ele, it could be confusing who wrote the sentence. So e ele escreveu makes it explicit: the other person (not Ana) wrote on the board.

Grammatically, e escreveu uma frase no quadro is possible, but in context, using ele is clearer and more natural.

What exactly does frase mean here? Is it “sentence” or “phrase”?

In European Portuguese:

frase most commonly means a sentence in the grammatical sense: a complete statement with a verb.
It can sometimes be used more loosely for a short expression, but in school/grammar contexts, frase = sentence.

So ele escreveu uma frase no quadro is best understood as:

“He wrote a sentence on the board.”

If you specifically need “phrase” (a smaller chunk within a sentence), Portuguese often uses expressão or locução, depending on context, but that’s not what is meant here.

What does no quadro mean literally, and how is it formed?

No quadro is the contraction of em + o quadro:

em = in / on / at
o quadro = the board (or picture frame, painting, etc., depending on context)

So:

em + o → no
em + a → na

Literally, no quadro = “in/on the board”. In a classroom context, quadro usually means the blackboard / whiteboard, so no quadro here is naturally translated as “on the board.”

Why is there no comma before e in …esse verbo e ele escreveu…?

Portuguese punctuation rules are fairly similar to English here:

When two clauses are joined by e (“and”) in a simple sequence of actions, it is normal not to use a comma.

So:

A Ana pediu‑lhe um exemplo com esse verbo e ele escreveu uma frase no quadro.

This is like English:

“Ana asked him for an example with that verb and he wrote a sentence on the board.”

A comma could appear if:

you wanted a stronger pause, contrast, or change of subject/tense, or
the clauses were long or complex enough to need clearer separation.

But in this short, straightforward sentence, omitting the comma is standard.

Why is the past tense pediu / escreveu used here instead of another past form?

Pediu and escreveu are the pretérito perfeito simples (simple past) in Portuguese, used for completed actions at a specific time in the past.

The sentence describes:

a single request (she asked once),
followed by a single action (he wrote once).

So the pretérito perfeito is the natural choice.

Other past tenses would change the nuance:

pedia / escrevia (imperfect): would suggest ongoing, habitual, or background actions.
- A Ana pedia‑lhe exemplos… = “Ana used to ask him for examples…” / “Ana was asking him for examples…”
tinha pedido / tinha escrito (pluperfect): used to talk about something that happened before another past event.

Here, we just have a simple sequence of two completed actions, so pediu and escreveu are exactly what you’d expect.

Can the word order change, for example Ele escreveu uma frase no quadro vs Ele escreveu no quadro uma frase?

Yes, Portuguese allows some flexibility in word order, though there are preferences.

For the second clause:

Ele escreveu uma frase no quadro. – most neutral and common:
subject (ele) + verb (escreveu) + object (uma frase) + locative (no quadro).
Ele escreveu no quadro uma frase. – also correct, but a bit more marked; it can slightly emphasize no quadro (“on the board”) as the place where he wrote.

The first part with the pronoun is less flexible in European Portuguese:

A Ana pediu‑lhe um exemplo… – neutral EP word order with enclisis.
A Ana-lhe pediu um exemplo… – incorrect.
A Ana lhe pediu um exemplo… – more Brazilian-style; sounds odd in neutral European Portuguese unless there is a pronoun‑attracting word before it.

So:

In the second clause, you can move no quadro before or after uma frase without changing the meaning much.
In the first clause, pediu‑lhe (or pediu um exemplo a ele) is the natural EP pattern.