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A1+

Sei Lá

Bárbara Tinoco

Language
Portuguese
Released
2019
Genre
pop
Level
A1+
Difficulty score
474
Duration
3:22

How to study this song

The card for “Sei Lá” is built from 56 study entries at A1+: 17 Portuguese words, 6 adjectives and 33 verb forms. Start with the glossary: dia, semana and estação come up again and again, so they are the ones to know first. This one leans on its verbs: 33 distinct forms against 6 adjectives, so conjugation is where the effort goes. 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

PTENESITFRNLDE
diadaydíagiornojourdagTag
semanaweeksemanasettimanasemaineweekWoche
estaçãoseasonestaciónstagionesaisonseizoenJahreszeit

This card holds 14 more words. You meet them when you play the song.

Adjectives

What this song teaches you

Level · A1+

Vocabulary words
17
Adjectives
6
Word combos
5
Expressions
9
Verb forms
33
Quiz questions
35

More Portuguese songs at this level

  • Tu E Eu — Diogo Piçarra (2015)A1+
  • Postinho de Gasolina — João Gustavo e Murilo & Grelo (2026)A1+
  • Há Um Mar Que Nos Separa — Leonor Andrade (2015)A1+
  • Ai Se Eu Te Pego — Michel Teló (2011)A1+

Background

About the song

«Sei Lá» was the second single of Bárbara Tinoco, a Portuguese singer-songwriter born in Lisbon on 16 November 1998 and raised in Cacém, on the city’s western outskirts. Music ran in the family: her father is a sound technician, the family owned a musical instrument shop in the Rossio area of Lisbon, her grandfather gave her a ukulele as her first instrument and her father taught her the guitar when she was twelve. She went on to study Musical Sciences at the NOVA University of Lisbon.

Her career began with a failure that turned into a success. In 2018 she auditioned for «The Voice Portugal» with Dolly Parton’s «Jolene» and none of the coaches turned their chair. Before she left the stage she was asked to play something of her own, and she sang «Antes Dela Dizer Que Sim», a song she had written at sixteen. The clip spread quickly online, the song became her debut single in 2019 and she found a manager, Pedro Barbosa, and a place as the opening act on João Só’s tour that year.

«Sei Lá» came out on 10 December 2019, with a music video released the same day. Tinoco wrote both the words and the music, and the track was produced and mixed by João André. It had the difficult job of proving that the first hit was not a one-off: when it was released, «Antes Dela Dizer Que Sim» was already close to five million views on YouTube. The answer was a quieter, more intimate song, built around a voice that sounds almost like someone thinking aloud, and it did more than hold its own.

The song is sung in the first person by a young woman who is not sure of much. The first verse piles up small uncertainties, from the day of the week to the season, and she admits she may not even want to know the answers; people say she has gone mad, and she feels she is no longer the person she used to be. The chorus turns to a relationship that is out of balance. She keeps promising, praying and giving, while the other person offers pretty words worthy of a soap opera and takes a little more of her each time; the question she keeps coming back to is what will be left of her in the end. In the second verse the roles are reversed: now it is the other person who knows nothing, about her private battles, about the songs she writes and about how much she loves them.

The title is the key to the whole song. In Portugal «sei lá» is an everyday shrug, a way of saying «who knows» or «don’t ask me», and «sabes lá» turns it on the listener: «what would you know». Tinoco uses the two phrases as a frame, first to talk about her own confusion and then to accuse the person who never tried to understand her. Many listeners, especially young ones, recognised in it the feeling of giving too much in a relationship, and that recognition is a large part of why the song lasted.

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PTENESITFRNLDE
loucacrazylocapazzafollegekverrückt

This card holds 5 more adjectives. You meet them when you play the song.

Verb forms

PTENESITFRNLDE
seiI knowsésoje saisik weetich weiß
vamoswe arevamosandiamonous allonswe gaanwir sind
queiraI may wantquieravogliaje veuilleik wilich wolle
saberto knowsabersaperesavoirwetenwissen
dizemthey saydicendiconoils disentze zeggensie sagen
estouI amestoysono, stoje suisik benich bin
souI amsoysonoje suisik benich bin
fuiI wasfuisono stataj’ai étéik wasich war

This card holds 25 more verb forms. You meet them when you play the song.

Did you know?

Tinoco’s path to fame is unusual for a talent show: she never made it past the blind audition of «The Voice Portugal». It was the original song she played after being turned down that went viral, and she has since returned to the franchise on the other side of the desk, as a coach on «The Voice Kids».

In 2020, a few months after «Sei Lá» came out, she won the Revelation Artist award at the Play – Portuguese Music Awards, and she finished second in the Festival da Canção, Portugal’s selection for Eurovision, with «Passe-Partout», a song written by Tiago Nacarato. In 2021 she won the Globo de Ouro for Best Performer.

«Sei Lá» and «Antes Dela Dizer Que Sim» were later collected on her debut album, «Bárbara,», released in October 2021; the comma is part of the title. That same year she put out the EP «Desalinhados», made of duets with artists such as António Zambujo, Carolina Deslandes and Bárbara Bandeira. She played Rock in Rio Lisboa in 2022 and released her second album, «Bichinho», in 2023.

She plays the guitar and the ukulele, and has named Miguel Araújo, Suzanne Vega and Julia Michaels among her influences. Besides her own records she writes songs for other artists.

For learners the song is a good sample of the Portuguese spoken in Portugal. The singer addresses the other person as «tu», with the matching verb endings, and the object pronoun goes after the verb joined by a hyphen, as in «pergunta-me» (ask me) or «pergunto-te» (I ask you), where Brazilian Portuguese would usually put it in front. The word «bocado», a bit, is also far more common in Portugal than in Brazil. After «talvez», perhaps, the verb goes into the present subjunctive, and «ir» plus an infinitive works as a spoken future.

Charts & streaming

«Sei Lá» was certified double platinum in Portugal, the same certification as her first hit, «Antes Dela Dizer Que Sim». The debut album that collected both songs, «Bárbara,», was certified gold, and two more of its singles were also certified: «Outras Línguas» platinum and «A Fugir de Ser» gold.

For scale, the single that came before it had passed ten million views on YouTube, and the success of the two songs was enough to earn Tinoco the Revelation Artist award at the 2020 Play – Portuguese Music Awards.