Learn Hardcore Portuguese (Portugal): O diretor aceitou a proposta da equipa depois de ouvir todos. - The director accepted the team's proposal after listening to everyone.

Aceitou is the pretérito perfeito simples (simple past) in European Portuguese. It describes a finished action in the past, seen as a single, complete event:

O diretor aceitou a proposta…
→ The director accepted the proposal… (at a specific point in time, done and over)

Compare:

aceitava (pretérito imperfeito):
Used for ongoing, repeated, or background past actions.
- O diretor aceitava todas as propostas.
  → The director used to accept / would accept all the proposals.

So in this sentence, aceitou tells us the acceptance was a single, completed decision.

Why is it aceitou a proposta and not something like aceitou à proposta?

In Portuguese, aceitar is a transitive verb that takes a direct object without a preposition:

aceitar algo → to accept something
aceitou a proposta → accepted the proposal

The a before proposta here is the definite article (a = the, feminine singular), not a preposition.

The form à is a contraction of a + a (preposition a + article a), used with some verbs that require the preposition a, which is not the case for aceitar.

So:

✅ aceitou a proposta (correct: direct object)
❌ aceitou à proposta (wrong: aceitar does not take a)

What exactly does da mean in da equipa?

Da is a contraction of:

de + a → da

So da equipa literally means “of the team”:

a proposta da equipa
→ the team’s proposal / the proposal from the team

If the noun were masculine, you’d see:

de + o → do
- a proposta do diretor → the director’s proposal

Why is it equipa here and not equipe? Do they mean the same thing?

Both forms exist, but:

In European Portuguese: the normal word is equipa.
In Brazilian Portuguese: the normal word is equipe (for work/professional teams), and time is often used for sports teams.

In European Portuguese, equipa can mean:

a sports team
a work team / project team
any organized group working together

So in Portugal:

a equipa = the team
In Brazil you’d typically write:
a equipe

Why is it depois de ouvir and not just depois ouvir?

When depois is followed by a verb in Portuguese, you normally need depois de + infinitive:

depois de comer → after eating
depois de falar → after speaking
depois de ouvir todos → after hearing/listening to everyone

So:

✅ depois de ouvir (correct)
❌ depois ouvir (incorrect in this structure)

Why is ouvir in the infinitive (depois de ouvir) and not conjugated, like depois de ouviu?

After depois de, you use the infinitive form of the verb:

depois de + infinitive → after doing something

So:

depois de ouvir todos
→ after (he) heard everyone / after hearing everyone

If you want a full finite clause with a conjugated verb, you need depois que (more Brazilian) or depois de + ter + past participle:

depois de ter ouvido todos → after having heard everyone
(Brazil) depois que ouviu todos → after (he) heard everyone

But depois de ouviu is ungrammatical. It must be:

depois de ouvir (infinitive), or
depois de ter ouvido (perfect infinitive).

Who does todos refer to in depois de ouvir todos, and why is there no extra pronoun like eles?

In this context, todos means “everyone / all of them”, and it most naturally refers to people involved in the decision (for example, team members, staff, etc.).

In ouvir todos:

ouvir = to hear / listen to
todos = direct object: everyone / all of them

Portuguese often doesn’t need an extra pronoun here; todos already plays that role.

Possible variations:

ouvir todos eles → hear all of them
ouvir toda a gente → hear everybody
ouviu-os a todos → heard them all

The original ouvir todos is simple, natural, and fully grammatical.

What’s the difference between ouvir and escutar?

Both are often translated as “to listen” or “to hear”, but there’s a nuance:

ouvir
- basic verb for hearing (physically perceiving sound)
- also very commonly used for listening to someone
- ouvir alguém = hear/listen to someone
escutar
- often suggests listening attentively / paying attention
- a bit more “active” in its default sense

In this sentence, depois de ouvir todos is perfectly normal. You could say depois de escutar todos, but ouvir is more neutral and more common in this kind of context.

Can I move depois de ouvir todos to the beginning of the sentence?

Yes, very naturally. You can say:

Depois de ouvir todos, o diretor aceitou a proposta da equipa.

Both orders are correct:

O diretor aceitou a proposta da equipa depois de ouvir todos.
Depois de ouvir todos, o diretor aceitou a proposta da equipa.

The second version slightly emphasizes the “after hearing everyone” part, but the meaning is the same.

Why is it O diretor with the article o? Could you just say Diretor aceitou a proposta…?

Portuguese uses definite articles with job titles and roles much more often than English:

O diretor → the director (a specific known director)

So:

O diretor aceitou a proposta… is the normal way to say “The director accepted the proposal…”

If you say just Diretor aceitou a proposta… without the article, it sounds either:

like a headline, or
like you are calling the director directly (vocative), e.g. “Diretor, aceita a proposta?”

In normal narrative speech and writing, you should keep the article:

✅ O diretor aceitou…

How would this sentence typically look in Brazilian Portuguese?

A very natural Brazilian Portuguese version would be:

O diretor aceitou a proposta da equipe depois de ouvir todo mundo.

Changes:

equipa → equipe (Brazilian form)
todos → todo mundo is a very common way in Brazil to say everybody in speech.
You could still say ouvir todos, but ouvir todo mundo sounds more colloquial and typical.

Grammar (tense, structure depois de ouvir) stays the same.

How would the sentence change if the director were a woman?

Only the noun for director changes; the rest stays the same:

A diretora aceitou a proposta da equipa depois de ouvir todos.
→ The (female) director accepted the team’s proposal after hearing everyone.

Notes:

diretor → diretora (masculine → feminine)
equipa is already feminine, so a proposta da equipa doesn’t change.
todos still works even with a female director, because it refers to the people she listened to, not to her.