Learn a Language with Music in 5 Steps

Learn a Language with Music in 5 Steps

When listening to foreign-language music, we often don’t pay enough attention to the lyrics. What we do is called passive listening. Don’t get me wrong, it can be helpful, but it’s not as effective as active listening when trying to improve your language skills. To learn a language with music, you have to try to process the linguistic information in the song while still enjoying the song.

A passion for music could be the key to improving your language skills, no matter what language you’re learning. I have lots of friends who learned English while strumming a guitar and humming along! (If you’re learning English, read our article about how to learn English with music.)

Here are 5 steps to learn a language with music and enjoy yourself at the same time:

1. Choose a Song that You Like

You don’t have to go out of your way to find out how music and language mesh. And you don’t need to spend lots of time looking for new songs to learn. Instead, you should start with songs that you already listen to. All you have to do is look up the lyrics to the songs you like.

You could listen to your favorite song in that language, or to a song that mixes languages your know and are learning. Even if you study the lyrics once or twice and then just play the song on repeat, you’ll still be able to hang onto the meaning of the lyrics. Repetition is one of the most important factors in learning a foreign language.

2. Try to Sing or Hum the Song Without Looking

If you want to improve your pronunciation, then sing along with the song—trying your best to pronounce the words properly—without reading the lyrics. In fact, if you try to sing the song by only reading the lyrics, you’ll pick back up bad pronunciation habits. It’s okay if you don’t understand the meaning of what you’re singing. The point of this step is to pronounce the words well.

A user pointed out to me in a comment that an extra step to putting together music and learning could be to try to write down the lyrics while you’re listening to the song. This is a great exercise and could fit into this process as Step 2B! (However, this step likely requires you to have reached an intermediate language level.)

How to learn any language

Have you ever wondered why it seems like some people pick up languages much more easily than others? News flash: those people aren’t any smarter than you are, and they don’t have any kind of special gift for language learning, either. It’s all because of the methods they use. Practicing with the latest and most effective techniques, along with a few expert tips, is a recipe for success. It can work for you, too! MosaTraining combines all of these tips and techniques into one comprehensive, hands-on approach to language learning.

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3. How to Mesh Music and Learning? Look Up the Lyrics!

We wrote an entire article on the tools and websites for learning a language with music. You can also look up the lyrics online. To do this, Google “lyrics Name of Song” (or letras = “lyrics” in Spanish; or paroles in French). If you need a translation, search “translation lyrics Name of Song” to find what you’re looking for in just a few clicks.

iTunes users can install a software program that scans your music library and automatically adds lyrics to your MP3 files. If you have a PC, then we’d recommend LyricsFetcher. For Mac users, we recommend Get Lyrical. These programs make it possible to see song lyrics directly on your phone or MP3 player as you listen. By adding apps like this, you can listen to your favorite music while you’re out and read along with the lyrics!

4. Listen to the Song While Reading the Lyrics

When you listen to the music with the lyrics, you’ll be surprised at how many words and phrases you already know, but just hadn’t realized until now. It’s not always easy to understand the lyrics of a foreign-language song on your own. Think about all of the songs you’ve probably been singing wrong for years in your native language!

Focus on the phrases that you find the most interesting, or even just the refrain. Just knowing the refrains of your favorite songs is enough to learn hundreds of words and phrases. Here are some examples:

French:

The title and refrain of Edith Piaf’s “Non, je ne regrette rien” teach the French negative pronouns “ne…rien,” which mean “nothing” or “not…anything” in English.

From listening to Carla Bruni singing “Quelqu’un m’a dit que tu m’aimais encore”, you’ll learn a complete sentence almost effortlessly: “Someone told me that you still loved me” (Sometimes, songs lose their beauty when they are translated ;-))

Spanish:

“No, no es amor / Lo que tu sientes / se llama obsesión” (No, this is not love / that you are feeling / it is called obsession) sung by Aventura. Here is the music video for “Obsesión” on YouTube
Even the beautiful Shakira teaches us the adjective loca when she sings the refrain of her song entitled… “Loca“!

Italian:

There is a lovely Italian song by Charles Aznavour called “La Mamma.”

Anyways, everyone has their own tastes—the point is to choose songs you like!

5. Listen to the Song Again and Sing Along

Now that you know the words and have grasped the general meaning of the song, sing along! Once you’re fixed on your favorite song, you’ll find yourself singing it in the car or in the shower! Before you know it, you’ll have memorized the song!

Repetition is one of the fundamental pillars of memorization. If you follow these 5 steps, I can guarantee that you’ll significantly improve your language skills. Learning a language with music is fun and takes minimal effort. It’s also a nice complement to MosaLingua’s spaced repetition system.

We recommend that language learners alternate between “serious learning” (e.g. the MosaLingua app or grammar lessons) and fun activities (music, movies, etc.). (If you’ve read about passive vs. active learning, you’ll know why.) This will help you continue practicing without losing your attention or concentration or getting tired. And who knows, your results may even surprise you!

For More Information

Has music impacted your learning and fluency? If yes, which songs? Feel free to post YouTube links to your favorite songs in the comments! If you enjoyed this article on music and learning, click below to share it. Thank you in advance!

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