5 ways to learn a language through music
Personally, I feel like music is an integral part of a language, which can help you understand the local culture better. When I’m starting to learn a new language, I always look for some songs in the language first, in order to check if I like the sound of it and decide if I really want to learn it. There are lots of playlists in different languages on Spotify, YouTube and other online platforms. When I finally decide that I do want to learn the language, I usually listen to a few songs that I found and enjoyed over and over again, until I start to actually study through language apps, online courses and other resources.
Here I want to talk about one of my favorite ways to learn a language, that is, through music. If you’re starting a new language, I highly recommend to first find songs you enjoy and just listen to them a couple of times. It’ll help you get used to the sound of the language and increase your motivation to learn it. Then you can actually start the process of learning, using a method you enjoy the most and find the most effective. Below I listed a few of the methods I frequently use, in order from easiest to most challenging (according to me). So, method no. 1 is mainly addressed to beginners in a language, and each subsequent method is directed at a little bit more advanced learners.
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Method No. 1
So the first way of learning a language through music is very simple and doesn’t require you to know any words in the language at all. The first step is to just listen to a song of your choice and focus on the way the language sounds. Then you can listen to it again, this time looking at the lyrics and trying to match the letters to different sounds (it’s much easier with Latin alphabet). Afterwards, you can read the translation of the song and then finally write down in your notebook words you consider useful to know, with the proper translation. This is a good way to start your language learning journey and keep you interested in the language.
Method No. 2
The second method is very similar to the previous one. It is to write down the lyrics to your chosen song in your notebook and then read the translation as well. This will help you analyze the song more thoroughly and learn most of the lyrics by heart. You’ll quickly realize how different words are written and observe some trends as well (e.g. in Spanish many words end with -ción or -sión). Noticing these little things is actually a really vital element of learning any language.
Method No. 3
The next way of learning a language through music is… to sing a song of your choice along with the lyrics! I’m not a great singer myself, but I think this is a really useful method of learning a language because it makes me focus a lot on the pronunciation, which is arguably one of the most important skills in language learning. From my experience, it can also help you memorize the lyrics faster and develop an emotional connection to your target language.
Method No. 4
This is a slightly more difficult method of learning a language, but at the same time I find it very effective. When you already know a song pretty well, you can ask someone to print out the lyrics, but remove some words from it. Your task is to fill the gaps while listening to the song once or twice. It’ll help you differentiate the words, improve your spelling and think about the meaning of the song. For this purpose you can also use a website called lyricstraining.com or an app called ‘Lingo Clip’, which are available in 14 languages and offer quite a selection of songs.
Method No. 5
The next method is useful especially for intermediate and advanced learners. I use it mostly when I want to get over a language learning plateau. It is about picking one of your favorite songs (or any song, it doesn’t really matter) and trying to translate it yourself. It’s a really good practice that will force you to recall the words you’ve forgotten and also expand your vocabulary. Afterwards you can compare your translation to the one you find online. I don’t know why, but it gives me a lot of motivation to keep learning my target languages. Plus, it helps me learn the songs by heart, which is very nice especially before a concert. By the way, I strongly recommend going to a concert in the language you’re learning, it can be such a wonderful experience!
Bonus method!
My bonus method includes listening to a podcast ABOUT music in your target language. I remember listening to a podcast in Portuguese about well known Brazilian songs, in which the host read the lyrics out loud, translated every line to English, explained new grammar structures and also talked about the cultural context contained in the songs, which was a really brilliant way of learning a lot about the language. Unfortunately this podcast doesn’t exist anymore, as I couldn’t find it anywhere, which is such a shame. However, you can try yourself to find such podcasts in your target language, I’m sure there must be some, especially in the more popular languages like German, French or Spanish. Good luck with your language learning journey!
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