Learn Hardcore Portuguese (Portugal): Ela ouviu‑me com atenção e disse‑me que não lhe parecia nada grave. - She listened to me carefully and told me that it didn’t seem serious to her at all.

In European Portuguese, unstressed object pronouns are very often placed after the verb and written with a hyphen. This is called enclisis (e.g. ouviu‑me, disse‑me, vê‑lo, contar‑te).

You use enclisis in main clauses when nothing is attracting the pronoun to the front (no não, no adverb like já, no subordinate conjunction, etc.).

Could a European Portuguese speaker also say Ela me ouviu and me disse instead of Ela ouviu‑me and disse‑me?

In standard European Portuguese, the more “correct” / formal forms here are:

Ela ouviu‑me com atenção…
…e disse‑me que…

Putting the pronoun before the verb (Ela me ouviu, ela me disse) is called proclisis. In European Portuguese:

Proclisis is obligatory with things like não, nunca, já, que, se, quem, ninguém, etc.
- Ela não me ouviu.
- Ela disse que me ia ajudar.
After a simple subject with no such trigger, enclisis (ouviu‑me) is the norm in careful speech and writing.

In informal EP speech, you do sometimes hear Ela me ouviu, but it sounds more colloquial, and to many ears a bit Brazilian‑sounding. In Brazil, by contrast, Ela me ouviu / Ela me disse is the normal default.

What exactly does lhe mean in não lhe parecia nada grave?

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

In this sentence it most naturally refers back to ela:

não lhe parecia nada grave ≈ “it didn’t seem at all serious to her.”

So the structure is:

[isso] não lhe parecia nada grave
literally: “(that) didn’t seem at all serious to her.”

It cannot mean “to me”; if it were “to me,” you would say não me parecia nada grave.

Why is lhe used instead of a ela or para ela here?

The verb parecer usually takes an indirect object with a:

parecer a alguém = “to seem to someone.”

The corresponding pronoun for a ele / a ela / a você is lhe:

Não parecia nada grave a ela.
Não lhe parecia nada grave.

Both are grammatically correct, but in natural European Portuguese:

lhe is the default pronoun form in this structure.
a ela is used more for emphasis or contrast:
A mim parecia grave, mas a ela não parecia nada grave.

Para ela is possible in everyday speech, but with parecer, a (and so lhe) is more idiomatic.

How would a natural Brazilian Portuguese version of this sentence look?

A very natural Brazilian version would be:

Ela me ouviu com atenção e me disse que não parecia nada grave.

Notes:

Brazilians strongly prefer proclisis (pronoun before the verb): ela me ouviu, me disse.
ouviu‑me, disse‑me sound formal / literary or even European to most Brazilians.
lhe is less common in everyday Brazilian speech; often they simply say
não parecia nada grave (it didn’t seem serious)
or, if they really want to specify her:
…e me disse que pra ela não parecia nada grave.

Why is the imperfect parecia used instead of a simple past like pareceu?

Parecia is the imperfect, which in Portuguese often describes:

ongoing states in the past,
background impressions or feelings,
something that lasted for a while or was a general view.

So não lhe parecia nada grave conveys that, in her judgement, as a state or ongoing impression, it didn’t seem serious.

If you say não lhe pareceu nada grave (preterite):

it sounds more like a single event or reaction at a specific moment,
“at that moment it (suddenly) didn’t seem serious to her.”

Both can be correct, but parecia is more natural if you’re reporting her general evaluation, not just one instantaneous reaction.

In não lhe parecia nada grave, what is the subject of parecia? There’s no word like isso.

The subject is understood / implicit, something like isso / aquilo / o que eu lhe disse (“that / what I told her”).

Portuguese is a “null subject” language: it often drops pronouns when they’re understood from context. So:

Full idea: Ela disse‑me que [isso] não lhe parecia nada grave.
Spoken/written form: Ela disse‑me que não lhe parecia nada grave.

The que-clause refers back to whatever you told her / whatever happened, and that omitted “that” is the logical subject of parecia.

Is não … nada a double negative in Portuguese?

No. In Portuguese, combinations like:

não … nada
não … ninguém
não … nunca

are normal single negation, not “double negatives” in the English sense.

So:

Não lhe parecia nada grave.
= “It didn’t seem at all serious to her.”
(NOT “It seemed serious”)

If you put nada before the verb, you can drop não:

Nada lhe parecia grave. = “Nothing seemed serious to her.”

But with nada after the verb, standard usage wants não as well:
Não lhe parecia nada grave.

What does nada grave literally mean, and why is it often translated as “anything serious”?

Literally:

nada grave = “nothing serious.”

However, inside a negative sentence:

não lhe parecia nada grave
maps very naturally to English “it didn’t seem anything serious to her”
or more idiomatically “it didn’t seem at all serious to her.”

English usually uses “anything serious” after a negation (didn’t seem anything serious), whereas Portuguese keeps “nada” (“nothing”) together with não. So:

não … nada grave ≈ “not … anything serious / nothing serious at all.”

Why is it com atenção and not atentamente? Are they interchangeable?

Both are correct, but there’s a nuance:

com atenção = “with attention, carefully, attentively”
Very common and neutral in everyday speech.
atentamente = “attentively”
Also correct as an adverb, but a bit more formal / stylistic here.

So you could say:

Ela ouviu‑me com atenção.
Ela ouviu‑me atentamente.

Both mean she listened attentively. Com atenção is the more colloquial, “default” choice.
Note that Atentamente, is also a very common formal letter closing (“Yours sincerely”).

What’s the difference between ouvir and escutar? Could we say Ela escutou‑me com atenção?

Yes, you can say:

Ela escutou‑me com atenção.

In general:

ouvir = “to hear / to listen (to)” – more common and more general.
escutar = “to listen (to), to pay attention while hearing” – often feels slightly more active or deliberate, but the difference is small and often neutralized in practice.

In European Portuguese, ouvir is very frequent even where English says “listen”:

Ouvi‑te na rádio. = “I heard you on the radio.”
Ela ouviu‑me com atenção. = “She listened to me attentively.”

Escutar is perfectly correct but a bit less frequent in many everyday contexts.

Why doesn’t grave change form for the feminine? Why is it nada grave, not something like nada grava?

Adjectives ending in ‑e (and some other endings) usually have the same form for masculine and feminine in Portuguese:

um problema grave (masc.)
uma situação grave (fem.)
nada grave (neutral / default masculine singular)
coisas graves (plural)

So grave only changes for number, not for gender:

singular: grave
plural: graves

There is no form grava in this sense.

Is it necessary to repeat ‑me in disse‑me, or could we say Ela ouviu‑me com atenção e disse que…?

You can omit the second ‑me if the context is clear:

Ela ouviu‑me com atenção e disse que não lhe parecia nada grave.

This is very natural: once it’s clear who is being spoken to, Portuguese often drops repeated object pronouns.

Repeating it, as in the original:

Ela ouviu‑me com atenção e disse‑me que…

is also correct and a bit more explicit / careful. In written narrative, both styles are common; repetition can add a sense of parallelism (“she listened to me… and she told me…”).

How is lhe pronounced in European Portuguese?

In European Portuguese, lhe is usually pronounced with a palatal consonant, roughly:

IPA: /ʎɨ/ (in most central/southern accents)
Similar to:
- lh in filho
  - a very reduced vowel.

Approximate English guide (not perfect):

Start with something like the “lli” in “million”, but smoother and with the tongue against the hard palate, then add a very short, weak “uh” sound: “ly(uh)”.
It never rhymes with English “lee”.

In quick speech, it’s often very short and can sound almost like just the consonant /ʎ/ attached to the next word:
não lhe parecia ≈ [nãʎɨ pɐˈɾesjɐ], with lhe blending into parecia.