Lambada
Kaoma
- Language
- Portuguese
- Released
- 1989
- Genre
- pop
- Level
- A2-
- Difficulty score
- 526
- Special
- Legend
- Duration
- 3:28
An unusual card, and the anomaly is the lesson: it has no adjectives at all. Sixteen nouns, twelve verb forms, and nothing describing anything. What it has instead is motion — chorando, dançando, and the invented lambando, all built with the -ndo ending Portuguese uses where English uses -ing. Meet the pattern three times inside one song and it stops being a rule you have to memorise. The other half is the future: estarei, estará, guardarei. Portuguese marks the future with an ending rather than a helper verb, which feels alien coming from English and takes repetition before you trust it. A2- is right for the vocabulary, which is short and concrete, but the verbs are doing more work than that grade suggests.
How to study this song
Learning “Lambada” means 29 entries at A2- — 16 Portuguese words and 13 verb forms, every one taken from what the song actually says. The glossary is the place to begin — amor, ar and canção are the song’s keywords. Nothing dominates this card: 16 words against 13 verb forms, so the study time splits evenly. At this level the goal is recognition: hear a word, place it, keep going.
The words of this song, in several languages
Every word below is taken from this song and translated by us. Nothing here is the lyric itself — these are the individual words you need in order to follow it.
Vocabulary
| PT | EN | ES | IT | FR | NL | DE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| amor | love | amor | amore | amour | liefde | Liebe |
| ar | air | aire | aria | air | lucht | Luft |
| canção | song | canción | canzone | chanson | lied | Lied |
| dança | dance | baile | danza | danse |
What this song teaches you
Level · A2-
- Vocabulary words
- 16
- Word combos
- 9
- Expressions
- 7
- Verb forms
- 13
- Quiz questions
- 35
More Portuguese songs at this level
Background
About the song
“Lambada” is the sensual, accordion-led dance anthem released in 1989 by Kaoma, a French-Brazilian group that used it to launch the lambada dance craze across Europe.
Sung in Portuguese with a bright, swaying tropical rhythm, it soundtracked a hip-swivelling partner dance that became a global sensation in the summer of 1989, evoking sun, beaches and holiday romance.
The Bolivian original, “Llorando se fue”, was written by the brothers Ulises and Gonzalo Hermosa of Los Kjarkas in 1981, in the slow Andean saya rhythm; a Peruvian accordion version in 1984 and a Portuguese one by Márcia Ferreira in 1986 carried it towards the arrangement Kaoma used.
Did you know?
The song topped the charts in numerous countries and sold in the millions, becoming one of the defining party hits of its year.
It was, however, an adaptation of the Bolivian group Los Kjarkas’s song “Llorando se fue”, and a legal dispute over the uncredited use later ensured the original writers were properly recognised.
Charts & streaming
“Lambada” was a multi-million-selling international smash and remains synonymous with the late-1980s dance craze it inspired. Still a familiar fixture of party and summer playlists, it is one of the most successful Portuguese-language pop singles ever released in Europe.
Released in July 1989, it sold around five million copies in that first year, spent twelve weeks at number one in France and reached four in the United Kingdom and 46 on the American Hot 100. Its melody returned to the charts in 2011, sampled by Jennifer Lopez on “On the Floor”.