La puerta permaneció cerrada.

Permaneció is the preterite form of permanecer, meaning remained or stayed.

So La puerta permaneció cerrada means the door remained/stayed closed.

Compared with estuvo cerrada:

• estuvo cerrada = was closed
• permaneció cerrada = remained closed / stayed closed

Permanecer emphasizes that the state continued over a period of time. It sounds a bit more formal and more precise than estar.

It is the third-person singular preterite of permanecer.

• permanecer = to remain
• permaneció = he/she/it remained

Here it matches la puerta, which is treated as it:

• la puerta permaneció = the door remained

The preterite is used because the speaker is presenting this as a completed past situation.

Because cerrada agrees with la puerta, which is:

• singular
• feminine

In Spanish, adjectives usually agree with the noun they describe:

• el libro cerrado
• la puerta cerrada
• las ventanas cerradas

Even though cerrada comes from the past participle of cerrar, here it functions like an adjective describing the door’s state.

In this sentence, it is best understood as an adjectival complement describing the state of the door.

So grammatically, it behaves like an adjective:

• it agrees with puerta
• it describes the result/state: closed

You can think of it as a participle being used adjectivally, which is very common in Spanish.

The accent mark shows where the stress goes: per-ma-ne-CIÓ.

Without the written accent, Spanish spelling rules would normally stress the second-to-last syllable in a word ending in a vowel, n, or s. But here the stress must fall on the final syllable, so the accent is required.

So:

• permaneció = stress on -ció

This is a very common pattern in preterite forms such as:

• comió
• vivió
• salió
• permaneció

The choice depends on how the speaker views the past situation.

• permaneció cerrada = the speaker sees it as a completed whole
• permanecía cerrada = the speaker presents it as an ongoing/background state

So:

• La puerta permaneció cerrada toda la noche
  The door remained closed all night.
  → a complete finished period

• Cuando llegamos, la puerta permanecía cerrada
  When we arrived, the door was still remaining closed / was staying closed.
  → background description, less common but possible in the right context

In many cases, permaneció is the more natural choice when the period is seen as finished.

Yes, but the meaning changes slightly.

• La puerta siguió cerrada = the door continued to be closed
• La puerta permaneció cerrada = the door remained closed
• La puerta quedó cerrada = the door ended up closed / was left closed

So:

• permaneció focuses on the state lasting
• siguió also shows continuation, often in a more everyday way
• quedó often suggests a result or final situation

They are related, but not interchangeable in every context.

In normal Spanish, you need la here because you are talking about a specific door:

• La puerta permaneció cerrada

Saying Puerta permaneció cerrada sounds unnatural and incomplete in standard Spanish.

Spanish often uses the definite article where English might also use the, especially with specific countable nouns like puerta, mesa, coche, and so on.

In most of Spain, the c before e is pronounced like the th in think.

So a rough pronunciation would be:

• La puerta → la PWER-ta
• permaneció → per-ma-ne-THYOH
• cerrada → the-RRA-da

More approximately in IPA for Peninsular Spanish:

• La puerta permaneció cerrada
  [la ˈpweɾta peɾmaneˈθjo θeˈraða]

A couple of key points for Spain:

• ce/ci usually sound like th
• rr is strongly trilled
• d between vowels in cerrada is softer than English d

The normal, neutral order here is:

• La puerta permaneció cerrada

But Spanish word order is more flexible than English, so other orders are possible in certain contexts. For example:

• Permaneció cerrada la puerta

That version is more marked and might sound literary, emphatic, or context-dependent. For most learners, the neutral pattern with the subject first is the safest choice.