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Songs in languages you dont understand

  Tags: Singing | Song Texts
 Language Learning Forum : Music, Movies, TV & Radio Post Reply
19 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3  Next >>
hombre gordo
Triglot
Senior Member
Japan
Joined 5574 days ago

184 posts - 247 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Japanese
Studies: Portuguese, Korean

 
 Message 1 of 19
19 January 2010 at 3:33pm | IP Logged 
I am sure that many people on this forum listen to music in languages which they do not understand yet but might study some time in the future. Some people may just have curiousity about how certain lesser know languages sound. Others may find the languages music itself beautiful.

Most of the music I listen to is in Japanese, my strongest foreign language. I ocassionally listen to Spanish language music because there is so much good music in the hispanosphere. I personally think Spanish language music is way better that English language music, especially the most recent modern trash (music went downhill ever since the 80s came to a close). However, when I am concentrating on reading a difficult text I prefer to listen to music in languages in dont understand so that my reading isnt impeded by the lyrics. When reading Japanese, I ocassionally listen to Chinese, Turkish or Hungarian music.


However, does anyone actually sing in a language that they dont yet understand?

I understand that some professional singers practice an unknown language song paying attention to the phonetics but not paying much attemtion to the meaning of the lyrics.

I have daringly learned some songs in Hungarian and Italian for Karaoke paying specific attention to the sounds/pronunciation, but not really bothering about learning the meaning of the lyrics. I dont speak Hungarian or Italian.
   
Maybe if I do this more often, it will lay down a foundation for studying these languages in the future. Maybe it will serves to get hold of the pronunciation even before I start to study the languages.

I intend to study Hungarian in the future. I dont have interest in learning Italian but there are some songs I like in that language. Also Italian songs are really easy to learn because I already know Spanish.

Does anyone else enjoy/ dont mind singing songs in languages they dont yet understand?

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Fasulye
Heptaglot
Winner TAC 2012
Moderator
Germany
fasulyespolyglotblog
Joined 5838 days ago

5460 posts - 6006 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto
Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish
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 Message 2 of 19
20 January 2010 at 9:18pm | IP Logged 
No, I am a guitar player and I sing hobbywise, but only in the languages I speak. It wouldn't make much sense to me to sing in languages I am not related with.

Fasulye

Edited by Fasulye on 20 January 2010 at 9:21pm

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Jiwon
Triglot
Moderator
Korea, South
Joined 6427 days ago

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Speaks: EnglishC2, Korean*, GermanC1
Studies: Hindi, Spanish
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 Message 3 of 19
20 January 2010 at 9:33pm | IP Logged 
I had to sing in Latin, Sinhala, Italian and Spanish for the choir, without understanding the languages themselves. It doesn't make a big difference really. Just like singing in languages I already know.
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Yukamina
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 6255 days ago

281 posts - 332 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Korean, French

 
 Message 4 of 19
20 January 2010 at 9:36pm | IP Logged 
I found some Finnish music I really liked one time. I don't plan to learn Finnish, but I just enjoy listening to the music and the sound of the language. I've also come across some miscellaneous songs in languages I don't know while listening to last.fm.

I mostly listen to Japanese or English music. There was a period of time where I pretty much only liked Japanese music, but I thankfully grew out of that and broadened my horizons.
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B.Haack
Triglot
Newbie
Brazil
Joined 5532 days ago

1 posts - 1 votes
Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishC2, French
Studies: Russian, Greek

 
 Message 5 of 19
09 February 2010 at 12:56am | IP Logged 
i really love to hear songs and try to sing in languages i don't understand. I think that's great because i'm having an idea of the spelling and the phonetics of that language and i usually go to the dictionary to have a clue of what it's talking about. And i also practice my spelling, since i'm trying to pronounce sounds that may not exist in portuguese, my mother language.
Here is a very good greek song, a rap, i'm working on singing it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuFfj5bqpiw
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elysandler
Triglot
Newbie
United Kingdom
Joined 5395 days ago

22 posts - 25 votes
Speaks: Modern Hebrew, English*, French
Studies: Latin, Spanish, Russian

 
 Message 6 of 19
17 February 2010 at 6:02pm | IP Logged 
I doubt that it'll help much with future language learning - usually, and I don't think that I'm unique, song lyrics
just sort of turn into a mesh of sounds, even in my native language (English), but espically in other languages,
which I can understand perfectly from native speakers face-to-face.

Just my thoughts.
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mick33
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5915 days ago

1335 posts - 1632 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Finnish
Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish

 
 Message 7 of 19
19 February 2010 at 10:24pm | IP Logged 
I could sing in Afrikaans, Swedish and Finnish before I could write or speak at all in those languages. I don't speak Hungarian but I can sing this song and I have listened to Saami songs though I can't sing them.

I do listen to music as a way of learning pronunciation in languages I am studying. Listening to music must be attentive listening, especially at first, otherwise the words do become a mishmash of sounds.





Edited by mick33 on 19 February 2010 at 10:58pm

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nadia
Triglot
Groupie
Russian Federation
Joined 5505 days ago

50 posts - 98 votes 
Speaks: Russian*, English, French
Studies: Hindi

 
 Message 8 of 19
23 February 2010 at 2:26pm | IP Logged 
I love listening to songs in languages I don't understand -- to Hindi songs from Bollywood movies, to Natalia Oreiro (Spanish sounds very beautiful in her songs and def. makes me wanna learn the language), to Italian songs by Al Bano and Romina Power, etc. I've a feeling that any language sounds better in a good song than when it's just spoken. I think a lot of people start learning the language because they like some singer.   


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