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Learning by singing along | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| chirel Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 5245 days ago 125 posts - 159 votes  Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: French | Message 1 of 21 12 May 2010 at 8:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm new to the forum and I was filling my language information when I noticed that singing along has been an really
important method for me in learning any of the languages I know. I've just never used it deliberately. Does anyone else do this? (That "If you can't spell it" thing is kind of scary by the way.) 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| evandempsey Diglot Newbie Ireland Joined 5619 days ago 27 posts - 53 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Italian, Russian | Message 2 of 21 14 May 2010 at 9:58am | IP Logged | ||
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Hey chirel,
Singing along has been an important part of my language learning, and a great way of improving listening comprehension (especially hip-hop). The fact that transcriptions are readily available online for 99% of songs makes music an almost perfect learning resource. It's like having my own musical Assimil. I can't help singing along to the songs either, and when I do I find that I am unconsciously trying to match the pronunciation of the singer. Expressions that I hear in songs also tend to surface in my conversations in the language. The effect can be rather strange when I've been listening to Brassens. Edited by evandempsey on 14 May 2010 at 9:58am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5491 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 3 of 21 14 May 2010 at 10:49am | IP Logged | ||
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Absolutely, this is one of the activities I look forward to most in my language learning programme.
You can sit down and study the songs in more detail, sing snippets into your shower gel microphone first thing in the morning, or just go out wandering in the countryside with your IShuffle and look like a crazy singing-to-themselves type of person (lol). I also strum along with the guitar when I have the chance, it's my 15 minutes of fame amongst the neighbours each time... When I went to Russia last year, everyone was amazed how I knew all the choruses off by heart when out clubbing, and I even sang at a friend's wedding reception after a few measures of Dutch (or rather, Russian) courage, can you believe it! :) Edited by Teango on 14 May 2010 at 10:52am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ThisIsGina Groupie United Kingdom languageblogbygina.w Joined 5253 days ago 56 posts - 72 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Romanian, Catalan, Greek, German, French | Message 4 of 21 14 May 2010 at 5:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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I do this, but I can't pick out the words just by hearing them, I need to look up the words online (I sometimes have to do this with songs in my native language as well).
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| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5859 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 5 of 21 15 May 2010 at 4:23am | IP Logged | ||
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I do deliberately listen, and sing along to, music as a way of learning words and pronunciation. When I find a song I like I listen to it four times without trying to sing along or learn the lyrics, but when I get to the fifth listen I start singing along and either find the lyrics online or try to figure them out on my own.
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| darkwhispersdal Senior Member Wales Joined 5975 days ago 294 posts - 363 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Ancient Greek, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, Latin | Message 6 of 21 15 May 2010 at 9:48pm | IP Logged | ||
I have to do the same for English songs as well. For instance in Gabriella Cilmi's song Hearts don't lie I was sure she was saying "Homeless chicken" constantly in the chorus 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5491 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 7 of 21 16 May 2010 at 3:21am | IP Logged | ||
Haha...there one or two songs from my youth that I learned incorrectly this way too. When I discover years later what they were really saying all this time in the chorus, it makes me laugh, but can I ever stop hearing it the way I first picked it up and change, now that's a challenge! ;) Edited by Teango on 16 May 2010 at 3:22am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mspen1018 Triglot Newbie United States Joined 5266 days ago 36 posts - 44 votes Speaks: English, German, Sign Language Studies: Persian, Spanish | Message 8 of 21 25 May 2010 at 8:03am | IP Logged | ||
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the only issues I can think of regarding Music and singing along with Music are that Music is not always the
Standard version of the Language and may have grammatical differences or errors in the song's verses. Like Rammstein, in the USA, I meet kids that adore Rammstein but don't understand what the song means and online translations seem to be courtesy of Google translate which does literal and "gist" translations and they will argue with me over the song's meaning. My favorite US teenager who mistranslate Rammstein verses to girls to show off and when I call them the funniest names in German and they just go "ja" or "nein" to you and not one of them can pronounce German correctly let alone speak it and they will argue to the death about what the translation to "du hast" is even with the haben ich, du er/es/sie charts and the hassen chart and noting that du hasst in reference to hassen to hate has two SS's they will call me a liar. in du hast, the verse after the du hast repeats in the beginning is "du hast mich gefragt" which makes no sense but they hear the English version and even with the translation to that which is not close to the same thing I am called a liar because they are just lost souls. I try to offer to help tutor German students just to teach it because it is much more beautiful than English and the "cold" impression that outsiders get of Germans based on their language and when one understands how beautiful that language is and when it is the mother of English and Dutch which are both just chopped up German and you learn more from a German grammar class about English than 13 years of US classes on English which never went into the grammar much further than conjunctions and prepositions let alone moods and tenses and things that English speakers just "got" and for years it was the same with German in my case because my grandmother taught me to speak read and write both when I was 3 because I was hyper and I never learned all of the technical aspects of German, I knew it was different but when I can't recall not knowing it, it is like most illiterate people who speak a language but can't read or write in a way... they get it. but in Rammstein's case... the verses do not use tenses properly, like many feminine dative cases are written as "die" in some cases so it may not be proper Standard language rules and may be regional. they say ich like ish rather than ick so they are from the southern part of Germany because my family is from that area and I actively start with (ich the standard German like a cat hissing ch not Berliner ick or southern ish) and go to ish. the only German teacher I had was a Hochdeutsch drill sargent... no ish, no slang, no Bairisch, no greetings outside of Hallo! or Guten Tag! (Servus in my case) and I had to adopt her perky bouncy melodic German dialekt and my grandmother had a harder more Rammstein sounding dialekt... I used to laugh at her. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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