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Quando a loiça está suja, as raparigas lavam-na.

Quando a loiça está suja, as raparigas lavam-na.
When the dishes are dirty, the girls wash them.
From Lesson 75:Nasal attached pronouns (-no, -na, -nos, -nas)·Portuguese (Portugal)

Questions & Answers about Quando a loiça está suja, as raparigas lavam-na.

Why is it lavam-na instead of just lavam-a?
This sentence demonstrates a special rule for direct object pronouns. When a verb ends in a nasal sound, like the -m in lavam, the pronouns o, a, os, and as change to no, na, nos, and nas. Since the girls are washing a loiça (a feminine, singular noun), the pronoun is normally a. Attached to lavam, it becomes lavam-na.
Why is 'the dishes are' translated as singular a loiça está instead of plural?
In Portuguese, a loiça is a collective noun meaning 'the crockery' or 'the dishware'. Even though we say 'dishes' in English (plural), loiça is grammatically singular in Portuguese. That is why it uses the singular verb está and the singular adjective suja.
Why use está instead of é for 'is dirty'?
We use está (from the verb estar) because being dirty is a temporary condition, not a permanent characteristic of the dishes. Once the girls wash them, they will be clean again!
In English it says 'wash them', but the Portuguese pronoun -na is singular. Why?
The pronoun must match the Portuguese noun it replaces, not the English translation. Because it replaces a loiça, which is a singular feminine noun, you must use the singular feminine pronoun -na (a modified -a), even though we translate it as 'them' in English.

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