How I use music to learn languages | tips and step-by-step process

[@krishnanclips]

At school, in the eighth grade, a language teacher made us sing one poem. Nearly 55 years later, I still remember the poem! Music is perhaps the best way to remember sentences, but it may not be suited to everyone's style.

[@bzylarisa]

In my opinion, music is crucial when you really want to learn your target language. Music is a part of culture, learning language is learning its culture. Yes, you could be fluent without paying any attention to music, but in that case I think you would be missing some important part of "learning language" which is to learn their culture. If you were living in a country of your target language, you would learn some songs automatically, like it or not, because it's part of the local life. You would get to know famous local singers that everyone knows of as well. So, for me, learning language involves learning music, and it's pretty natural for me. Songs have a lot of repetitions that improves vocabulary memorization, listening skills and pronunciations. By the way "Ojala Pudiera Borrarte" de Maná is also a good song to learn our favorite subjunctive🤣I highly recommend it!

[@tbenavente]

Totally agree about the culture aspect! I think I wouldn’t understand at least half of my favorite Mexican memes If I wasn’t obsessed with a bunch of old-school singers. Also, thanks for the recommendation, I definitely need a refresher on subjuntivo 😅

[@jajasatorashi136]

​@@tbenaventedo you have Spotify playlist for japanese learner?

[@langdinish]

I personally don't tend to look up lyrics, or even sing along (maybe in the car), but I find listening to it does help me with motivation to learn the language ("wow this language has stuff I like THIS much and THIS cool, I want to learn more about it and its culture") or even just get a better feel for the pronunciations, intonation and language sounds, which sometimes seem a bit hard to get used to as a beginner

[@tbenavente]

ahah, what you described is literally me every time i listen to a song in arabic 😅

[@langdinish]

@@tbenavente you have the bug already ahah

[@GwynneM]

I'm learning Mandarin, and using music as one of my learning methods. I really enjoy Mandopop. It is quite flexible in the tones, but it is very helpful for practicing reading along and learning new characters and words. I pick one song at a time to slowly work through translating it, and learning it until I can sing it karaoke-style before moving to another.

[@tbenavente]

Oh, that’s good to know! I haven’t learned a tonal language before, so I wasn’t sure if that specific piece of advice would apply

[@Eeveecat]

Same! I also find that even if the tones aren't really that accurate, singing along helps me practice every other part of the pronunciation and encourages me to get the accent right to match the singer.

[@graygreysangui]

I saw a Tumblr post many years ago that gained the general consensus that music from the 50s&60s across all languages was the best source. They are usually around 3min or less, they repeated a chorus, the beat was slow enough, and words were clearer than music today. It surprised me to see your video and how you found people found music useless. Unless you could buy Rosetta Stone or Pimsleur, music was the audio input you could get when I was a teen (and anime was on KZbin in three separate videos per episode.)

[@WanderwithJon]

Despite not revising them, I like writing notes in that it helps me memorize stuff easier. It's a complete waste of tangible resource, but it helps a lot with my learning.

[@DeepestDiveDev]

Thank you for speaking my mind and validating my opinions

[@langdinish]

(the already dissected songs playlist is a really great ideia btw! I've been too lazy to make playlists for my TLs, because I've listened to too many discographies and artists already, but if I do it by song, and then use it as a way to "review" [even if passively] sounds like it could work!)

[@yuulfuji]

1:57 omg, im so happy to hear about this! i’ve been doing this with japanese for about a year or so now, finding karaoke’s in jp for my fav songs (which are all japanese lol!) on yt and singing them constantly. literally just before i started watching this i was singing some of the karaoke’s i have saved to a playlist lol. its really helpful as a recourse, i can definitely tell my reading speed has improved quite a bit.

[@basewho5230]

I saw someone say that music is spaced repetition. You listen to songs that you like often enough, you'll remember the words and it'll help you recall the meanings because you're getting cued to think of those words often

[@amsterdamtony]

Thanks for the video Tanya. You are an inspiration

[@shay259]

Actually, music is partially a reason why I started learning a foreign language - Korean. Through kpop I began taking interest in other parts of Korean culture and a couple of years later decided to learn Korean. I am only a beginner now, but I am super excited. I look forward to the time when I will be pretty fluent and will be able to understand Korean content without subtitles - shows, movies, news, etc. :) However, sometimes I am self-conscious about it, because many people have a negative perception of kpop fans and think that if kpop inspired us to study the language and learn more about the culture, then we are koreaboos... I can't hear anyone say anything like that about people who are fascinated with French music and culture, Spanish, etc. But with Asian languages and culture it happens so often, sadly... So I always hesitate why people ask me why I started learning Korean, and I don't know whether I should be ashamed or not

[@tbenavente]

Look, I know people can be assholes about it, but for me personally my biggest grievance with my Korean is that I was never able to get into k-pop/k-drama, and I know that if I had, my Korean would have been so much better now. Liking k-pop is definitely an advantage, so don’t let people discourage you! Best of luck!

[@shay259]

@@tbenavente thank you very much! 💜

[@noemie.blchrd]

Hi ! Such a great video, I highly appreciate it ! Also, as a fellow learner of a tonal language, thai, music actually helped me a lot ! I guess it depends on the songs, some probably ignore the tones. But for thai I found some songs that were emphasising tones a lot, and it actually helped me to hear the differences between different tones! The first time I could understand the difference between ไม่ and ไหม was thanks to these two songs: ไม่เข้าใจ by นูโว and อย่ารักเขาได้ไหม by Dome And now I'm so proud of me when these songs get played in my playlist, cause it makes me remember the baby thai I was learning in the beginning ! I've come such a long way since then, It always gives good motivation and feeling of acomplishment too !

[@tbenavente]

Yeah, that feeling when you listen to the music you used to listen to as a beginner and realize you can now understand most/all of it is the best! Also, thank you for sharing your experience, I am very ignorant when it comes to tonal languages 😅

[@fatimahaljawi2047]

I kept reading through the comment section, and I am really envious of how engaging and helping your audience is. cannot thank you enough

[@zenbrandon]

When I was taking Spanish 2 in college, my teacher showed us a song called "Así soy yo" by El Cuarteto de Nos. It was a great song, and I quickly devoured all their music afterwards. It was definitely a huge help in that class and beyond for my Spanish comprehension!

[@fridamariemrk8638]

At school in french lessons we would listen to a lot of songs and also my teacher would make different rhymes for different sentences that we where learning. It did help a lot as the songs would stick without really trying as much so it was a way to get a bit more easy learning combined with all the other boring stuff.

[@jessplansandwrites]

I agree, learning languages with music is greatly motivating. I must say I learned a lot of advanced English vocabulary just from listening to Epica, one of my favourite metal bands (they’re Dutch-and kinda infamous for words and album titles that are hard to understand without a dictionary. A taste: Their second album is called “Consign to Oblivion”. Still looking for metal band recommendations who sing in Spanish… x) ) Generally speaking, I’d disagree that you could learn faulty language from music (with some exceptions-thinking of Tarja’s mispronunciation of “swords” in the Nightwish song “Elvenpath”). Most of the time, you’re learning slang, which isn’t wrong but just a different register of language. (Still-Bon Jovi’s “Misunderstood”-“I should have drove all night…”-makes me shudder! 😂) (I studied Eng Lang & Lit, btw.)

[@OleksandrBorysenko333]

Thanks for the tips. I think it will work for me!

[@tbenavente]

Best of luck!

[@SpainishRain212_7]

I love music as a learning tool. i listen to Spanish music a lot and it is helping me . I noticed that while I didn’t have the lyrics for all the songs I was listening to ,it seems as if I am learning how to pronounce the words I don’t know from the songs I just listen to a lot. I do a lot of your tips, and they have worked great for me. thanks for sharing. I am a new subscriber.

[@Christina-xl2rp]

I really like watching your videos. Your videos inspire me to move forward with my language learning, when I lack motivation. By the way, your English is really great! I am learning Englisch right now and listening to how you speak Englisch motivates me to work more on my English. It would be interesting to watch a video about how did you learn English. Thank you very much for your effort and inspiration!:)

[@Mindyourbusiness82]

Thank you for leaving the playlists. I will check them out. I think music is a hugely important area of language and culture that has great benefits for language learners. I started studying Korean because I wanted to be able to understand K-dramas better. A few months in, I though, why not look more into music because I remembered how beneficial music was when I was learning Spanish (I'm still learning Spanish, per se, but way more advanced than Korean). Then I got hooked on BTS and that has increased my motivation to learn Korean. I started studying in March, and while I'm still, what I would consider, a beginner, I know my Korean learning is going way faster than the time it took me to become conversation in Spanish, because of music and genuine interest in entertainment.

[@natalierivera4350]

What you said about music lyrics not being realistic to real life is so interesting because I’m Puerto Rican and I feel like Spanish music (especially reggaetón) is exactly how we speak in real life because of the slang and stuff. Or at least for PR in regards to reggaetón bc every Spanish country is different. Slang in PR could have a VERY different meaning in a different country. Example: bicho in PR Means bit*ch but in Cuba it means bug 😂😂 I would say music that’s not heavily slanged is better like Mexican music, bachata, salsa, etc. These are more classic songs.

[@רונהלוי-ה1ז]

no lo sabia que bicho es puede ser bit** tengo una cancion que me gusta escochar de los piojos "que voy haser con tanto cielo para me voy a volar yo soy un bicho de ciodad"

[@helumeow]

01:15 it's Yoon Jong Shin - Like It. Love it!!

[@joanMusicSpeaks]

Thank you for including your language playlists! I'm always up for Korean music recs! :)

[@TempestPhaedra]

Those people who say songs are useless for language learning were one of my first indications that I should not pay too much attention to what people online have to say about language learning. Granted, exceptions were broadly made for Hindi because Hindi singers commonly use a clear and over enunciated kind of style, which is great for listening. Their pronunciation is actually "more correct" than typical speaking pronunciation so it is very easy to hear words. But even aside from that, the main argument I've seen is one that was addressed here - songs use a nonstandard grammar that is useless for actual daily life. I think the response given in this video was very good, and I'll tack on by giving my experience that learning the various convulated ways that words can be tossed into a sentence through songs greatly aided me when I started reading regularly. Literary grammar can also be convoluted, sometimes moreso than in music, and since I already knew some of those perturbations from songs I had an easier time interpreting text. (I mean, when you get down to it a song is just an easily digestible amount of text; it stands to reason that learning how to interpret short texts helps in learning how to interpret long texts.) And of course, being able to read is much more useful to learning a language than not being able to read. I may not use this grammar in daily life, but I am definitely benefiting from the vocabulary I learn while reading. The broader conclusion is that I don't really think there are useless ways of learning languages. There's more and less effective ways, but as long as you're applying your brain to whatever you're doing, there's nothing that's truly useless.

[@PiraticalMaid-of-All-Work]

I relate to this, but for me it was opera. Easy to relisten to, and also got me into interviews and films :)

[@shutterchick79]

Learning a language using music is fun. I learned some Esperanto with "ni estas fortaj" by Jonny M, and some Spanish from "subeme la radio" by Enrique Iglesias. It's a good way to learn phrases and casual expressions, as well as becoming comfortable with the sounds of the language and pronunciation.

[@sweetsavage6759]

OMG. your logics make sense! the idea of it being the only stuff you would never forget to get back. Eg in my Chinese study, I ended up loving this Chinese ost song ( I just want to hide you secretly by Zhao Lusi and silent wang, ost of HIDDEN LOVE Drama) and I basically spent a day studying the lyrics and writing it down and after that day I didn't go back to the book. But I love the song so I almost play it like everyday 😅😅 so basically Whenever I play it I'm liking singing along to most part of the songs! And even Recognizing most of the Words in it! 😂 and my head basically grabs those words or phrase from that song and basically I use it in a sentence. same happens with another song where I picked up a phrase and still can't forget it till now even if I basically wrote it down once 😂. So yeah!!! Music is Amazing especially for memorinzng and remembering

[@brianpalas]

I think that music is a wonderful tool when learning a language. It's something that I would like to try and focus on with Swedish, since I am putting it in "maintenance" mode for when I start learning Polish in September. Not to mention that many of my favorite bands come from Sweden.

[@lemonpebble]

For me music is a very important motivator in my language learning journey, especially considering I'm someone who's not really into movies/series, so it's my main connection with my TL's culture. I totally agree with what you've said in the video - songs are a big resource of words, phrases and cultural references I'd probably never encounter anywhere else. I've experienced this through a few years of fascination with Bon Jovi - although I'd already had a really good level of English back when it all started, I've still learned lots of interesting vocab and cultural facts through analyzing lyrics and watching dozens of interviews. So nobody has to convince me it's a good method and I should apply it to my other languages too, even though it's definitely more difficult when you're a beginner 😃 Another good thing about music is that it's probably the most easily accessible kind of input which you can use even when you don't have time for proper learning etc. For example when I was busy with uni stuff, all I had time for was Clozemaster, but I kept listening to music in my TL's and I probably wouldn't have noticed that my Turkish level still increased, hadn't I started understanding words in lyrics I hadn't had understood before 😄 Btw, I've been searching for a good way of taking notes from lyrics but I think you've just inspired me to do it like you do 😊

[@KLSMP1]

i mostly remember vocabulary with music! when i memorize a new word i try to find out that word in the music that i like, or even i remember hearing that word before and say "ah! like in that song!" It's more easier that way (?) Espanol es mi idioma materno, me pone muy cotenta ver personas que lo estudian, se lo dificil que llega a ser para los estudiantes. Excelente video

[@VanillaVixen18]

Your videos are the most helpful language learning videos that I have found on KZbin. I’ve been watching #languagetube for over a year, and yours are by far the easiest to follow, contain the best tips, and have the chillest vibes. Thank you for another great video.

[@tbenavente]

Thank you so much!

[@bailagringacovers]

I totally agree with your perspectives

[@Nowhatsgoingon11222]

I’m improving my English with Taylor Swift. I’m literally expanding my vocabulary with her last albums. She used many words that I didn’t know about as English is not my first language

[@Nowhatsgoingon11222]

I started with One Direction to learn English, then through them I found about her. I’m grateful about it because now my pronunciation and vocabulary is getting better because of her. Watching also interviews from them can be really helpful. I always try to learn all the accents possible

[@vikipechi]

As someone who started learning japanese mainly because of music i can't imagine learning a language and not listening to music in it.....

[@azula.lee01]

This has not much to do with the video itself, but I wanted to ask you if you can recommend any workbooks for spanish? I want to practice more of the things I learn but as far as I've seen most youtubers only recomment grammar books. So I was curious if you maybe know any!

[@tbenavente]

You might want to check out this video where I recommend Spanish resources kzbin.info/www/bejne/kGHCd6JjoNlsqpo (not just books, but websites like Lingolia that have a bunch of drills for different skills). Plus, I also have this video where I show all of the Spanish books that I have: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oXKwp4uEbb2ioKc. A lot of them combine theory and practice, so you mind be able to find something you like

[@azula.lee01]

@@tbenavente will do that, thank u!!!!

[@margedtrumper9325]

I believe I have learnt English mainly through songs as a teen

[@lilacmckenna]

Aha, yes to watching the Eurovision performance! I am starting a Serbian course in September and it is primarily because I wanted to understand the Serbian music i found through Eurovision!

[@Nowhatsgoingon11222]

Whenever I think about Serbia all I think about is Djokovic 😅 How’s your Serbian now?

[@andressaseabra9706]

Thanks for videos. I'm brasilian. I think music is interesting tool but I prefer to listening covers because, in geral, they sing more slowing and have better pronuncie.

[@mewo0_]

didnt watch the full video but whenever i do learn the lyrics to songs in japanese i not only remember the words but the meanings too and since i love music but only listen to japanese music i wanna try to take advantage of that but its hard to force myself to do it loll

[@Sarmarcan]

hola presiso estoy aprendiendo ingles tambien quiero aprender coreano

[@betorezende7645]

Im using AI Bard to dissect the music, all explanations possible, line per line.

[@tbenavente]

interesting! which language are you using it for?

[@izabella6891]

Is there somewhere you find song lyrics with words removed so you can fill in the blanks? Or do you make those yourself and hope you forget what was there?

[@bartekchytry8648]

Całkiem dobrze Ci idzie nauka Polskiego. Ja za to uczę się Angielskiego haha :>

[@StudywithMiejie]

Thanks Tanyaさん for sharing this! (๑ᴖ◡ᴖ๑) I actually learned Japanese pronunciation through music (the pronunciation of “r” and small つ in words like だった、ちょっと). I also enjoy learning languages by listening to music and learning the lyrics of the songs. It feels so good when you’re already able to understand the lyrics of your favorite songs. (*ˊᗜˋ*)

[@thatsunnypoet]

Does anyone have any alt indie rock Greek music recommendations I can listen to?

[@Tanyaqwert24]

Ciao, come fai a conoscere così bene l'inglese?

[@djulettachurakova1380]

Dir en grey столько интерестных иероглифов😅

[@djulettachurakova1380]

Сайт с японскими и азиатскими песнями mojim lyrics❤