Have you ever fallen in love with a song, but it was in a different language you didn’t understand? Have you ever went the extra length and looked up the song lyrics and even tried to sign along?
By doing so, you actually made that song more memorable for you, meaning that you’ve it was easier to learn the lyrics, in whatever language they may have been.
It’s surprisingly common for our brain to be drawn to music that is in a different language, due to its beat, tempo, voice of the lead singer, memories about the song, etc. When this occurs, we often try to listen to the lyrics and understand what we are saying. For example, if it is a song with both French and English, you may listen to the French part and try to figure out what they are saying based on the English parts of the song, and the emotions the signer jam packs into the music.
Weather you can’t stop listening to Celine Dion, or you’re really into French Rap, by listening to music in French ( or any other language), you’re improving your language skills and learning new terminology, in a highly memorable way.
Music stimulates memory and emotions, so it’s likely whatever memory is associated with the song will be apparent whenever you hear the song. With that being said, if you’ve added a few French songs after your recent visit to Paris or Montreal, you’re likely going to think of the fun times you had seeing the Louvre and Eiffel Tower, or Mont Royal. This creates a perfect mental learning environment. While your mood being elevated helps learning, so does the catchy beat of the music, which in turn, will help you remember those lyrics in no time.
Not only are you more likely to remember the lyrics in your favorite foreign songs, you will learn vocabulary, sayings and syntax that might be unique to that city or country that the song originates from. If you are listening to music from France, it may be a little different than music from Quebec. This will help you remember the differences! It is also possible that when you listen to the music for the first time, you may only identify certain words. If you look up the lyrics, you’ll remember the grammatical syntax that bring the song lyrics together, which is a very important part of learning and understanding languages.
If you enjoy the music, you’re going to want to sign it over and over again. Repetition will occur naturally. And, doesn’t singing and dancing to a song sound much more fun than writing out certain words again and again? Even if you’re a bad singer, belting out lyrics will help your pronunciation. Since some words in music are carried out over a couple notes, it naturally breaks up the syllables and makes your remember the different prefixes or suffixes better. Usually it’s harder to do this in conversation, especially with a native speaker, because they tend to not break so much between words.
Even if you’re speaking with a native language speaker, they may not be able to quickly draft up phrases that include historical facts, cultural norms or scenarios and feelings into one sentence. Since lyrics are the pride and joy of some artists careers, music helps us to understand culture. Weather it’s a historic anthem from many years ago, or an artist signing their broken heart out, artists tend to put their own flair in their music, which usually includes cultural norms or settings.
Not only dose music automatically increase your mood, stress levels and happiness, but it can always be with you! You’ll learn a lot by implementing music in different languages in your daily routine. For example, if you have a 35 minute commute 2 times a day, you’ll be able to listen to a decent amount of music day after day, and you’ll know all the lyrics in no time!
So, next time you hear that catchy song in French, download it and learn the lyrics and sing your heart out! Music can be an extremely useful resource to beautifully embed a new language in your brain.
