Songs have a place in learning languges

[mentecuerpo]

I genuinely believe that songs play an essential role in language learning.

There is a reason why children learn and sing songs at an early age across cultural backgrounds (at least, I believe is the case).

My grandson is seven. He is severely autistic and unable to communicate with spoken language. However, he sings in tune like he had taken singing lessons, so amazing to hear him sing his favorite nursery rhyme songs.

I get bored listening to podcasts that I don't understand just for the sake of listening to the language. However, I can listen to an hour of Italian, French, German, and Russian songs without any problem. I listen to one hour of German songs, then switch to another hour of Russian songs as an example. I listen to the playlist when I walk my dog, drive to work, and write notes after work.

Spotify comes handing with already made playlists songs at the tip of the finger search: German Pop songs and a playlist will bring dozens of songs for your hearing and language learning pleasure.

Try it, and you'll be the judge.

[MorkTheFiddle]

I genuinely believe that songs play an essential role in language learning.

You might also enjoy Lyrics Training, if you already haven't given it a look.
It leans toward current pop tunes, but even old curmudgeons can find something of interest.
I learned of it from member Serpent.

[einzelne]

I genuinely believe that songs play an essential role in language learning.

They do.
But if you happen to learn Russian by no means never try to use songs of Мумий Тролль as a study material.

[ilmari]

I genuinely believe that songs play an essential role in language learning.

Songs are easy to listen to, they can be listened repeatedly – and they provide authentic material of various levels of difficulties. By the way, the older versions of Assimil also offered a weekly song – a real treat in pre-internet times.

[Sonjaconjota]

I absolutely agree! What I love most is finding a sentence with a difficult grammar concept in a song that I like. When in doubt, I can just recall the sentence in the song to remember the correct structure.
With Turkish, I had a slow start, because I didn't find any songs I liked to begin with.
This youtube channel has been a game changer:
https://www.youtube.com/c/AnatolianRockRevivalProject/videos
I also started to research the soundtrack of Turkish films and series on netflix.
I'm still looking for nice songs in Dutch, I'd appreciate any recommendations.

[MisterVimes]

I'm still looking for nice songs in Dutch, I'd appreciate any recommendations.

I used to listen to BLØF and Typhoon, can recommend. I also like Eefje de Visser and Bazart (Flemish band) but their lyrics tend to be fairly abstract, so maybe not quite suited to language learning.

[Sonjaconjota]

I used to listen to BLØF and Typhoon, can recommend. I also like Eefje de Visser and Bazart (Flemish band) but their lyrics tend to be fairly abstract, so maybe not quite suited to language learning.

Thanks, I'll have a look!

[sporedandroid]

I find they’re really good for passive listening, but I don’t really enjoy music for active study. I tried that for Icelandic. It helped me understand some songs for sure, but there was also a lot of parts that were too advanced for me. That ended up sort of ruining the songs. When I started listening to Finnish music I just didn’t do any active study at all. Since some song titles were translated into English I started picking up Finnish words without trying. I also gradually was able to recognize the words I picked up in other songs as well. To me it seems like I find it easy to remember Finnish words even though Finnish isn’t related to any languages I know. Maybe I find it easy to pick up because of all my passive listening.

[Ug_Caveman]

I'm still looking for nice songs in Dutch, I'd appreciate any recommendations.

From the top of my head:
Marco Borsato, Jeroen van der Boom, De Opposites (if you like rap), Do (famous for singing the lyrics to DJ Sammy's cover of 'Heaven'), Tabitha, Trijntje Oosterhuis, Miss Montreal (and Davina Michelle who F1 fans might recognise also has some songs in Dutch but she mostly sings in English.)

Oh, and if you like annoying children's party songs:


*Apologies to mods, double posted by mistake so deleted the other one as soon as I realised

[Iversen]

Not in my language learning..