Na creche, disseram-nos que ele deixou de berrar assim que viu a educadora.

Na creche means at the nursery/daycare.

• na = contraction of em + a
• creche = nursery, daycare, crèche

So:

• em a creche → na creche

Putting it first sets the scene: At the nursery, ...

The comma shows this is background information before the main statement.

In Portugal, creche usually refers to a place for very young children, roughly a nursery or daycare for babies and toddlers.

It is not exactly the same as regular school. In this sentence, it tells us the event happened where the child is being looked after.

This is a very common European Portuguese feature.

In affirmative main clauses, object pronouns often come after the verb, attached with a hyphen:

• disseram-nos = they told us

In Brazilian Portuguese, nos disseram is much more common.
In European Portuguese, disseram-nos sounds very natural and standard.

So here:

• disseram = they said / they told
• nos = us

Together: disseram-nos = they told us

Disseram is the preterite (simple past) of dizer for they:

• eu disse
• tu disseste
• ele/ela disse
• nós dissemos
• vocês/eles/elas disseram

Here it means they said or they told.

It is an unspecified they. In context, it probably means the nursery staff, for example:

• the carers
• the teachers
• the people at the nursery

Portuguese often uses a plural verb like this when the exact speaker is not important.

So disseram-nos que... is a natural way to say:

• they told us that...
• we were told that...

Que introduces the content of what was said. Here it means that:

• disseram-nos que... = they told us that...

After verbs of saying, thinking, knowing, etc., que is extremely common:

• Disse que vinha. = He said that he was coming.
• Sabemos que é verdade. = We know that it is true.

Yes, Portuguese often drops subject pronouns because the verb form already shows the person. But ele can still be used for clarity, contrast, or simply because the speaker chooses to make the subject explicit.

Here, ele helps make it very clear that the child is the one who stopped screaming:

• ...que ele deixou de berrar...

Without ele, the sentence would still be possible in many contexts, but the explicit pronoun makes the reference clearer.

Literally, it is something like he left off screaming, but the natural meaning is:

• he stopped screaming
• he stopped bawling

The pattern is:

• deixar de + infinitive = to stop doing something

Examples:

• deixou de chorar = stopped crying
• deixei de fumar = I stopped smoking
• deixaram de falar = they stopped talking

Both are possible.

• deixar de + infinitive
• parar de + infinitive

Both can mean to stop doing something.

But there is a slight difference in feel:

• parar de berrar can sound a bit more direct and physical: he stopped the action
• deixar de berrar is very common and often slightly more idiomatic in Portuguese for ceasing a repeated or ongoing action

In this sentence, deixou de berrar sounds very natural.

Not exactly.

• chorar = to cry
• gritar = to shout / scream
• berrar = to yell, scream, bawl

Berrar is stronger and often suggests loud, unpleasant crying or screaming, especially with children. In this sentence, it gives the idea that the child was crying very loudly or bawling.

So deixou de berrar is stronger than just stopped crying.

Assim que means as soon as.

It introduces something that happened immediately after something else:

• assim que viu a educadora = as soon as he saw the caregiver/teacher

Other similar expressions are:

• logo que
• mal (in some contexts)
• quando sometimes, though it is less precise than as soon as

Viu is the preterite of ver for he/she/you:

• eu vi
• tu viste
• ele/ela viu
• nós vimos
• vocês/eles/elas viram

Here it means he saw.

The preterite is used because it refers to a completed event in the past: he saw the caregiver, and immediately after that he stopped screaming.

Yes, ver has some irregular forms in the preterite, so learners often notice it.

Preterite of ver:

• vi
• viste
• viu
• vimos
• viram

So viu simply means saw.

In this context, a educadora is the female childcare professional or nursery teacher/caregiver.

In Portugal, educadora often refers to an early-years teacher or childcare worker, especially in preschool or nursery contexts.

It is feminine because the person is female:

• o educador = male educator
• a educadora = female educator

Because a educadora is stated explicitly right after the verb:

• viu a educadora = saw the caregiver

If you wanted to replace a educadora with a pronoun, you could say:

• assim que a viu = as soon as he saw her

Both are possible, but in this sentence the noun is kept for clarity.

Portuguese is flexible with word order, especially when giving context first.

This sentence begins with the setting:

• Na creche, ...

Then comes the main information:

• disseram-nos que...

This structure is very natural because it first tells us where the information comes from, then what they told us.

A more neutral order could be:

• Disseram-nos na creche que ele deixou de berrar...

But the original sounds very natural and slightly better organized in context.

Yes. With dizer, English may use either say or tell, depending on the sentence.

• disseram-nos que... is most naturally they told us that...
• literally, it is closer to they said to us that...

In English, told us is usually the best translation here.

Yes, it strongly looks like European Portuguese, especially because of disseram-nos.

That post-verbal pronoun placement is very characteristic of standard European Portuguese in affirmative clauses.

A Brazilian Portuguese version would more likely be:

• Na creche, nos disseram que ele parou de berrar assim que viu a educadora.

That said, the original sentence is perfectly natural for Portugal.