Learn A Language Through Music

Listening to music can be a great way to help you pick up a new language. The key to music’s success as a language-learning tool lies in its ability to make learning a language fun. Apps like Idyoma can help here too. Having fun while you learn helps your memory absorb information, as well as making it more likely that you’ll stick to a study schedule and persevere even when the subject matter is challenging.

Aside from being a fun way to learn, music has other characteristics that make it a fantastic way to pick up a new language:

• Music can be enjoyed anywhere. A playlist can be taken anywhere your phone can, so unlike bulky text books, movies, or conversation partners, it’s a method of learning that is fully portable. 

• Music is catchy.  Repetitive phrases and catchy tunes are the perfect combination for getting new phrases etched into your brain. Have you ever had a song stuck in your head for days, even weeks? The same principle applies when using music to learn a language.

• Music helps you learn context and pronunciation. As well as songs being great for helping you soak up new information, they also improve your overall understanding of the language you’re learning. For example, singing along can help you perfect your pronunciation, and listening to the lyrics as a whole will help you grasp grammar and context better than learning single words in isolation.

If this has inspired you to incorporate music into your language learning sessions, here are some tips to make the most of your new favorite study hack.

Choose Music You Love To Learn A Language Through Music

Aspiring polyglots can sometimes be tempted to seek out music that they deem to be “right” for learning. Unfortunately, this isn’t a recipe for success. “You need to make sure that the music is something you would listen to even if you weren’t trying to learn the language – something that you’ll be happy to listen to over and over again, since repetition is key to picking up new vocabulary,” advises Lisa Thield, educator at State of writing and Boom essays.

What genre of music do you normally enjoy? Start here to learn a language through music, and search for music of a similar genre in the language you’re trying to learn. 

Read The Lyrics

Before committing the lyrics to memory, make sure you read through the lyrics and understand which words are being said. Once you’ve remembered a misheard word or phrase, it’ll be near impossible to wipe it from your memory.

Read through the lyrics while listening along to the song. The first few times you listen to the song, you’re unlikely to experience much improvement in your vocabulary. Don’t get disheartened by this. You’re still training your ear to pick out the individual sounds of the song and start to learn a language through music.

You can find the lyrics to almost any song, in English and in the song’s original language, using Google. You may even surprise yourself with the amount of words you’re already familiar with. 

Seek Out Words And Phrases To Learn A Language Through Music

Whether you break the song up into words, lines, or verses, try to isolate specific words and phrases in the songs you’re listening to (and hopefully singing along to!) This is much more approachable than trying to learn a whole song in one go, which can be so overwhelming you quit before you’ve even started.

The easiest place to start to learn a language through music is usually the chorus. As it’s repeated throughout the song, it’s easy to remember, and by its very nature it often has a catchy tune that will hook itself into your brain and assist you with memorizing new vocabulary. 

Don’t be scared to rewind the track as many times as it takes for you to completely master a certain section. This is essential to help you reinforce the words and phrases you’ve picked up. Once you’re totally comfortable with one section, it’s time to move on to the next. However, don’t completely forget the section you’ve just learned; each time you master a section, go back over the previous section, or sections, and before you know it you’ll be familiar with the whole song.

Sing Along

If, as explained earlier in this article, you’ve chosen songs you love, you won’t have to try hard to get into the swing of things: you might not be able to resist singing along!

Singing along in your language of choice is key to improving your pronunciation, as well as cementing the information in your memory. 

Don’t fret if you don’t understand the meaning of what you’re singing about. It really doesn’t matter! Repeating the sounds to a catchy beat will still ensure that they sink in and you start to learn a language through music.

“If you’re already reasonably proficient in the language, you could even try to transcribe the lyrics while listening to the song. This is a great exercise to really get your brain working!” suggests Roberto McNab, tutor at Essay Roo and Paper Fellows.

A great perk of being able to learn a language through music is that it can be incorporated into many other aspects of your daily routine. Belt out your favorite foreign tunes while taking a shower, cooking dinner, or doing any other household chores.

Learn A Language Through Music - Listen And Read

Instead of just listening and singing along, you can turn this into a reading exercise by keeping track of the lyrics. 

It can be really challenging to keep track of words in a language you’re not fluent in, so don’t be disheartened if you can only pick out a word every now and then. Try to focus on phrases that stand out to you, or maybe the chorus or another catchy section of the song. Even just learning the chorus of a few of your favorite songs will enrich your vocabulary more than you might expect. 

Mixing learning with an enjoyable and stimulating activity, such as listening to music, is a sure way to increase your brain’s ability to retain new information. By using the tips in this article, you’ll be able to learn a language through music in no time!

Christina Lee is a writer at OX Essays and a project manager at Academic writing service and Write my essay. Her areas of expertise include marketing news, and tools and technologies for marketing.