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Listening to music in another language is a great way to
learn pronunciation, culture, grammar and vocabulary. If you can find music
that you enjoy listening to and that gets "stuck" in your mind (or as
they say in German, an Earworm),
you can easily and enjoyably assimilate not only new words, but complicated
grammatical structures.
It has never been easier to find music to listen to with
sites such as YouTube or iTunes and play them on your portable music device
while doing other activities. Another great thing is that you can usually find the lyrics
(and sometimes the translation) for the songs on-line.
Here are some practical examples of how you can learn with
music. I am isolating a few examples from each song, but remember that
depending on your current level, each song contains dozens of learning
opportunities.
Listening to this song in Spanish sung by Shakira, you can
assimilate one use of the subjunctive mood when you learn the lyrics "…Yo
quiero que vuelvas…Yo quiero que regreses…"
The song "Schau mal
herein" in German includes the lyrics "Die Tasse Kaffee und auch das Glas
Wein, trink' ich noch immer gerne mit dir". Once you know the lyrics to
this song, you will know that "Glas" is a neuter noun and that the
word "mit" or "with" is followed by the dative case (mit
dir) so that whenever you need to know what case to use after "mit",
you can think of this song and know the answer.
Sticking with German, the Song "Universal Tellerwäscher" from Die Sterne
can also teach you German cases through lyrics like "in diesem Laden… in
die Gegend… aus dem Haus…" and you will never get the case wrong after the
preposition "gegen" because you will have heard "gegen
mich" over and over again.
With Amr Diab's Arabic language song "Ana
Aktar Wahed Bihebak",you can learn how to form the possessive when he sings "..fee garhak,
farhak, ana ganbak" (… in your suffering, and your joy, I
am beside you."
In addition to finding your own music, there are many
good websites and blogs that have done all the hard work for you. For example, Rockin' Russian provides not only the Russian lyrics, but you have the option
to also display the colloquial and literal English translation. There is also
the blog Learn Chinese from Movies for learning Mandarin Chinese
Finding music you like is
also one additional tool to help you to create your own immersion environment
when travel is not an option or when there are no native speakers
available.
Here's a more detailed example of using music to learn a foreign language using French as an example.
Suppose you wanted to improve your French pronunciation. Of course you can always study the rule in a textbook, but hearing the
pronunciation in real life, especially in the form of a song that you can play
over and over again in your mind, is not only great practice, but easy to
recall at a critical moment when you are in a conversation with a native
speaker. You will remember the song lyrics long before you will remember that
according to rule y on page x of the textbook, when consonant t is following by
a long vowel, then…
In French, there are two
different ways to pronounce the initial sounds "im" and
"in". Of course, you can memorize the rule that states one sound is
used before a vowel and the other before a consonant. However, it is much easy
to assimilate this rule using a song.
At 01:07 of this song by Céline Dion, she sings the words "impudence
inouïe" (line 7 in the lyrics provided below) and this provides a perfect
contrast of these two sounds.
If you have the written lyrics to the song (they are provided at the end of
this post), you can also learn that the "t" at the end of the verbs
désobéit (line 4), sourit (line 9), voit (line 2), etc. and the "x"
at the end of the nouns "flux" and "voix" (line 2) are all
silent.
You can hear the difference between the endings "émment" and
"amment" (line 17).
Of course, the final "-ent" is not pronounced in the verb
"passent" [they pass] (line 1), but the "ant" in the verbal
noun "passants" [passing] (line 10) is partially pronounced (the
"ts" is silent). The same thing happens with "dansent" [they
dance] and "marchant" [while walking] (line 11).
You can hear some examples of French liaison: "quelques injures"
(line 15) and "mais elles" (line 19).
You can see and hear that the singular "au" as in "au
vacarme" is pronounced identical to the plural form "aux" in
"aux voitures" and "aux trottoirs" (line 10).
Lyrics to Zora Sourit:
1: Une rue, les gens passent / Les gens comme on les voit
2: Juste un flux, une masse / Sans visage et sans voix
3: Quel étrange aujourd'hui / Quelque chose mais quoi ?
4: Désobéit, désobéit
5: Une rue comme d'autres / Et le temps se suspend
6: Une tâche, une faute / Et soudain tu comprends
7: Impudence inouïe
8: Insolite indécence
9: Zora sourit / Zora sourit / Zora sourit
10: Aux trottoirs, aux voitures, aux passants / Au vacarme, aux murs, au
mauvais temps
11: Son visage nu sous le vent / Ces gens qui dansent en marchant
12: Tout ce qui nous semble evident / Elle avance et bénit chaque instant
13: Zora sourit / Zora sourit
14: Des phrases sur les murs / Des regards de travers
15: Parfois quelques injures / Elle n'en a rien à faire
16: Elle distribue ses sourires / Elle en reçoit autant
