Learn Portuguese (Portugal): Está muito escuro! Não dá para ver a decoração. - It is very dark! It is not possible to see the decoration.

In Portuguese, the verb dar followed by para and an infinitive verb (like ver) forms an impersonal expression meaning "to be possible to". So, não dá para ver conceptually translates to "it doesn't allow for seeing", but is universally used in everyday speech to mean "you can't see" or "it's impossible to see".

Does dá change if we want to say that we can't see the decoration?

No, in this structure, dá is impersonal and always stays in the third-person singular (acting like the English "it"). It refers to a general "it is not possible". If you want to specifically identify who cannot see, you would typically switch to the verb conseguir, such as não conseguimos ver (we cannot see).

Why use está instead of é for "it is" in está muito escuro?

We use estar here because the darkness is a temporary condition of the environment right now. If you used ser and said é muito escuro, it would imply that the space is permanently or characteristically dark, such as a room with no windows, rather than just being dark at this particular moment.

Could I just say não é possível ver instead of using dar para?