Она сыграла песню.

Сыграла is the past tense of the perfective verb сыграть. Perfective verbs present an action as a complete whole.

So Она сыграла песню suggests:

• she played/performed the song
• the performance was completed

By contrast, играла is from the imperfective verb играть, which focuses more on the process, duration, or repeated action:

• Она играла песню = she was playing a song / used to play a song

For a single finished performance, сыграла is the normal choice.

In the Russian past tense, verbs agree with the subject in gender and number.

Here the subject is она = she, so the verb takes the feminine singular past ending:

• сыграл = he played
• сыграла = she played
• сыграло = it played
• сыграли = they played

So -ла tells you the subject is feminine singular.

Because песня is the direct object of the verb, it must be in the accusative case.

• Nominative: песня = song
• Accusative singular: песню

This is a common pattern for feminine nouns ending in -я:

• неделя → неделю
• земля → землю
• песня → песню

So Она сыграла песню literally has:

• Она = subject
• сыграла = verb
• песню = direct object in the accusative

It is accusative singular.

You use the accusative for the thing directly affected by the action. Since the song is what she played, песня changes to песню.

This is worth noticing because English does not change the form of song here, but Russian does.

Russian has no articles, so there is no separate word for a or the.

That means песню can mean:

• a song
• the song

The exact meaning depends on context. If the meaning has already been shown to the learner, that context is what tells you which English translation is best.

Usually, сыграла песню means she played/performed the song, often on an instrument or as part of a musical performance.

If you specifically want to say she sang a song, Russian usually says:

• Она спела песню.

So:

• сыграла песню = played/performed a song
• спела песню = sang a song

In real life, context matters, but спела is the clearer verb for singing.

Yes, often it can.

Russian frequently drops subject pronouns when the meaning is already clear from context. Since сыграла is feminine singular, Сыграла песню can already imply she played a song.

However, она is kept when you want:

• clarity
• emphasis
• contrast

For example:

• Она сыграла песню, а он прочитал стихотворение.
  She played a song, and he recited a poem.

So она is not always necessary, but it is perfectly normal.

No. Russian word order is much more flexible than English word order.

The neutral order here is:

• Она сыграла песню.

But you could also say:

• Песню она сыграла.
• Сыграла она песню.

These alternatives change the emphasis rather than the basic meaning.

Very roughly:

• Она сыграла песню. = neutral
• Песню она сыграла. = emphasis on the song
• Сыграла она песню. = emphasis on the fact that she did play it

So word order in Russian often reflects information focus, not just grammar.

A simple stress guide is:

• она́
• сыгра́ла
• пе́сню

So the stressed syllables are:

• о-на́
• сы-гра́-ла
• пе́с-ню

One sound that may feel unfamiliar is ы in сыграла. It does not have an exact English equivalent, so learners usually need practice with it.

Because песню is a direct object, and direct objects in Russian normally do not need a preposition.

So the structure is simply:

• она = she
• сыграла = played
• песню = a/the song

This is similar to English:

• She played a song.

No preposition is needed in either language here.