Breakdown of Ela disse que não pode vir.
não
not / no
ela
she
poder
can / may (verb)
dizer
to say
vir
to come
que
that (conjunction)
Questions & Answers about Ela disse que não pode vir.
In English, we say "She said she cannot come." Why is there a que in the Portuguese sentence?
Why is disse in the past tense but pode in the present tense?
disse is the past tense of dizer (to say), showing she spoke in the past. Using the present tense pode (can) shows that her inability to come is still true right now. If the event had already passed, you would usually use a past tense for the second verb too, such as Ela disse que não podia vir.
The English translation has "she" twice. Why is ela only used once in Portuguese?
In Portuguese, you often drop the subject pronoun if it is obvious from the verb or the context. Since we just established we are talking about Ela in the first half of the sentence, we do not need to repeat it after que. The verb pode already matches the "he/she/it" form.
Is disse a regular verb?
No, disse is a highly irregular past tense form. It comes from the verb dizer (to say or to tell). This is the "he/she/it" form in the simple past tense, which you will see very often in stories and reported speech.
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