Она облегчённо засмеялась и сказала, что тихая музыка всегда успокаивает её после работы.

Засмеялась is perfective and often means started laughing or let out a laugh. It focuses on the beginning of the action as a single event.

Смеялась is imperfective and would usually mean was laughing or laughed for some time, focusing more on the process.

So in this sentence, облегчённо засмеялась suggests she broke into relieved laughter.

Облегчённо means with relief or in a relieved way.

It is an adverb, describing how she laughed. In English, we often translate this kind of adverb with a phrase, such as laughed in relief or laughed relievedly.

So:

• засмеялась = she started laughing
• облегчённо засмеялась = she started laughing with relief

Russian often omits a repeated subject when it is already clear.

So:

• Она облегчённо засмеялась и сказала...

means

• She laughed with relief and said...

Since both verbs refer to the same person, repeating она would usually be unnecessary.

Сказала is the perfective past of сказать and refers to one completed act of saying.

Говорила is imperfective and usually means was speaking, used to say, or focuses on the process rather than the completed result.

Here the sentence tells us that she said something once, so сказала is the natural choice.

Что introduces a content clause after verbs like say, know, think, and so on. Here it works like English that:

• сказала, что... = said that...

Russian uses что very commonly in this structure.

Тихая музыка is in the nominative case because it is the subject of успокаивает.

The basic structure is:

• музыка успокаивает её
• music calms her

Also, тихая agrees with музыка:

• музыка = feminine singular
• тихая = feminine singular nominative

Usually тихая музыка means quiet / soft music, especially in terms of volume or gentleness of sound.

Depending on context, it can also suggest something soothing or not intense. But the basic meaning is quiet/soft music, not necessarily calm in an emotional sense.

If you wanted to emphasize calming or peaceful music, Russian might also use words like спокойная or успокаивающая, depending on the nuance.

This is a very common point for English speakers.

In Russian, after a past reporting verb like сказала, the verb in the subordinate clause often stays in the tense that matches the actual meaning, not the tense of the main verb.

So:

• сказала, что тихая музыка всегда успокаивает её после работы

means she said something that is generally true or true now as well.

English often shifts the tense backward:

• She said that quiet music always calmed her after work

But Russian does not have to do that. If the statement is still true or is a general fact/habit, Russian naturally uses the present tense:

• успокаивает = calms

Because успокаивать / успокоить takes a direct object: it calms someone.

So the person being calmed is in the accusative case:

• успокаивает её = calms her

For the feminine singular pronoun:

• nominative: она
• accusative: её
• dative: ей

You would use ей only if the verb required the dative, which успокаивать does not.

This is normal for Russian pronouns. For она, several forms overlap:

• genitive: её
• accusative: её

So in this sentence, you know её is accusative because it is the direct object of успокаивает.

This kind of form overlap is very common in Russian and usually becomes clear from the verb and sentence structure.

The preposition после always requires the genitive case.

So:

• работа = nominative
• после работы = after work

This is a set pattern you should memorize:

• после + genitive

Examples:

• после урока = after the lesson
• после ужина = after dinner
• после работы = after work

Yes, Russian word order is more flexible than English word order.

The given sentence is neutral and natural:

• Она облегчённо засмеялась и сказала, что тихая музыка всегда успокаивает её после работы.

But other orders are possible for emphasis, especially in the second clause. For example:

• ...что её всегда успокаивает тихая музыка после работы
• ...что после работы тихая музыка всегда успокаивает её

The meaning stays similar, but the emphasis shifts. The original version is a very straightforward, standard way to say it.

This is an aspect question.

• успокаивает = imperfective, calms / is calming
• успокоит = perfective future, will calm

In this sentence, always calms her after work describes a repeated habitual action, so the imperfective успокаивает is correct.

If you said успокоит, it would sound more like will calm her on a particular occasion, not a general repeated effect.

Yes. The letter ё represents a different sound from е, and it also shows the stress clearly.

• облегчённо
• её

In many printed texts, Russian writers replace ё with е, so you may see:

• облегченно
• ее

But the intended pronunciation is still with ё. For learners, it is very helpful when ё is written out.

In principle, работа can mean work, job, or workplace/work activity, depending on context.

But in this sentence, после работы is most naturally understood as after work, meaning after the working day or after finishing work. That is the standard everyday meaning here.