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Music and Listening Comprehension | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| kevingreece Newbie United States Joined 4034 days ago 12 posts - 20 votes Studies: Greek | Message 1 of 12 13 May 2014 at 7:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm sure this has been talked about somewhere else on this forum, but I can't find it. I've been using music to help
improve my listening comprehension of Greek. Does anyone find this to be the best way to improve listening comprehension? What are the pros and cons as opposed to other means, such as listening to the radio, etc.? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4712 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes  Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 2 of 12 13 May 2014 at 9:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The nice thing about music (especially if you use types of music which is sung to be
projected into a room) is that words are pronounced clearly and that you have a melody to associate the tune to. This melody helps you remember. Often songs use rhyme and other stylistic devices which means that you can use them as mnemonics. However the really nice thing you can do with songs is to take the lyrics and learn vocabulary from them. The problem with this is that you are holding it up as a single approach to improve listening and that's never going to hold up. To get better at listening you have to listen to Greek being used in many different environments, casual registers, newscaster voices and so on. The best way to improve your listening is to do lots of it, focusing first on meaning and then on detail. Another thing that is important is to master the pronunciation, so you understand what sounds corresponds to what is being said in Greek. Especially because the Anglophone way of speaking sounds very different from that of Greek, which uses much simpler vowels and has consonants you do not find in English, as well as using a very different sentence melody. Learn to roll your r's, as well. Edited by tarvos on 13 May 2014 at 9:46pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4914 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 3 of 12 14 May 2014 at 2:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
I agree with everything else you said, except this. Sometimes the words are pronounced clearly, sometimes they aren't. Since the melody and rhythm come first, even in music which is meant to be clearly heard words might not be clearly pronounced. Pronunciation and rhythm will often deviate quite a bit from how words are spoken when not sung. For example, a two syllable word might be extended to several more syllables. Accent, emphasis and intonation will differ quite a bit from spoken language. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5014 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 4 of 12 14 May 2014 at 5:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I love listening to songs in my target languages. It is an activity that fits into any few minutes long break during the day. The content gets stuck as you listen to music you like repeatedly and so on. Of course, it can't be the only thing you do for practice in order to succeed. But it is an awesome complement. For a few of the most popular languages, there is an awesome site lyricstraining.com but they appear unlikely to ever add other languages as well.
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| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6602 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 5 of 12 14 May 2014 at 6:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I started a wikia article about that :-)
Music is a great tool but be sure to listen to spoken texts as well. Just try to find something that isn't boring. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4712 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 6 of 12 15 May 2014 at 9:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, accent can differ, I agree, but the words are usually very clear especially if you sing in more classical styles :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5267 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 7 of 12 16 May 2014 at 2:47am | IP Logged | |||||
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Susanna Zaraysky's book Language is Music is an interesting approach to language-learning that I've found useful. She talks about how to Learn Language Through Music in this video. I bought her book in Portuguese for $1.00 and picked up some useful tips. As with everything regarding someone's learning "system", pick and choose what you want.
There's also Idahosa's The “flow” of fluency: How to freestyle rap in a foreign language. Music (song) is often denigrated unfairly, in my opinion, as a learning tool. It can be quite useful, in my experience. I certainly wouldn't use it as my only resource- but as a part of learning. Edited by iguanamon on 16 May 2014 at 3:31am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6602 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 8 of 12 16 May 2014 at 9:56am | IP Logged | |||||
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Yay it's on bookdepository!
edit: and even cheaper in Portuguese :) Edited by Serpent on 16 May 2014 at 10:00am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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