Mesmo com o babete, a sopa caiu no carrinho e tivemos de o limpar logo.

Mesmo com means even with.

It introduces a contrast:

• Mesmo com o babete... = Even with the bib...

The idea is that the bib should have helped, but in spite of that, the soup still ended up in the stroller.

A close English equivalent could also be:

• Despite the bib...
• Even though he/she had a bib on...

Portuguese often uses the definite article where English would not.

So:

• com o babete literally = with the bib
• but in natural English we might simply say with a bib on or with the bib on, depending on context

In Portuguese, using the article here sounds normal and natural. English is more flexible about leaving the article out in this kind of situation.

In European Portuguese, babete means bib.

It is the item a baby or small child wears while eating to protect their clothes.

So:

• o babete = the bib

That is a very natural question.

Portuguese often uses cair (to fall) in situations where English would more naturally say:

• spill
• drop
• fall onto/into

So:

• a sopa caiu no carrinho literally = the soup fell into/on the stroller
• natural English = the soup spilled into/on the stroller

The Portuguese sentence is completely natural. It is just using cair in a broader way than English usually does.

No is a contraction of:

• em + o = no

So:

• no carrinho = in the stroller / in the pushchair / in the buggy

This is a very common contraction in Portuguese:

• em a → na
• em os → nos
• em as → nas

Examples:

• na casa = in the house
• no carro = in the car

Literally, carrinho means little cart or small wheeled thing, but the exact meaning depends on context.

In this sentence, because we have babete and sopa, carrinho most likely means:

• stroller
• pushchair
• buggy

So the context tells you it is something for a small child, not a shopping trolley or some other kind of cart.

Yes. Tivemos de means we had to.

It comes from:

• ter de + infinitive = to have to / must

So:

• tivemos de limpar = we had to clean

Here, tivemos is the preterite of ter, so it refers to a completed past event:

• tivemos de = we had to

In European Portuguese, ter de is very common for obligation. You may also hear ter que, but ter de is especially standard and common in Portugal.

That o means it.

It refers back to o carrinho:

• o carrinho = masculine singular
• so the direct object pronoun is o

So:

• tivemos de o limpar = we had to clean it

English uses it after the verb, but Portuguese object pronouns often appear in different positions, which can feel unusual to English speakers at first.

Yes — this is about object pronoun placement.

In the sentence:

• tivemos de o limpar

the pronoun o comes before the infinitive limpar and means it.

This is a normal structure in Portuguese. You may also come across:

• tivemos de limpá-lo

which means the same thing: we had to clean it.

What you cannot do is leave the pronoun hanging at the end as a separate word:

• limpar o ❌

So the main thing to remember is:

• o = it
• it can appear in positions that are not the same as English

No. Here logo is an adverb, and it means:

• right away
• immediately
• straight away

So:

• tivemos de o limpar logo = we had to clean it right away

This is a very common word in European Portuguese.

Be careful not to confuse it with the English noun logo.

Because that is a very natural position for adverbs like logo in Portuguese.

The sentence:

• tivemos de o limpar logo

sounds natural and means:

• we had to clean it immediately

Putting logo near the end gives the idea of urgency in a very normal way. Portuguese word order is often flexible, but this placement is straightforward and idiomatic.

Yes, it could, but using o is more natural because o carrinho was just mentioned.

Compare:

• ...e tivemos de o limpar logo. = ...and we had to clean it right away.
• ...e tivemos de limpar o carrinho logo. = ...and we had to clean the stroller right away.

Both are correct. The version with o sounds more natural because it avoids repeating the noun unnecessarily.