Learning English through songs: listen to your favorite artists with benefits!
Everyone loves to listen to music: it uplifts, energizesб and inspires. But it can also be a powerful tool for language learning!
Unlike watching movies or TV series in English, learning by listening to music is not so time-consuming. On average, a song lasts two or three minutes, gives us aesthetic pleasure, and makes us want to listen to it again and again.
It is believed that even if we do not try to listen to the lyrics, we still subconsciously learn and memorize the spoken words. If we listen to music in a purposeful and conscious way, the process will bring even more educational benefits.
What are the benefits of listening to songs?
- Vocabulary Expansion. Even in the short period that one song lasts, we can learn many new and useful words and expressions. In addition, many words in songs are repeated in the chorus, and this is a great way to memorize them without much effort.
- Grammar. You can find a countless variety of grammatical structures in songs, which will also be easier to memorize as they come in a ready-made context with an attractive accompaniment and rhythm.
- Pronunciation. We hear how words and whole phrases are pronounced in natural speech, and through repetition and trying to sing along, we fully imitate this pronunciation, once and for all fixing its correctness.
How to choose a song
First of all, it is better to choose the genre and style that you like. You probably have a number of favorite artists whose songs you like, and you have always wanted to understand what they are singing about. Secondly, it is better to choose English-language songs that are sung by native speakers. Given that the music market is largely filled with English-speaking musicians, this doesn't seem to be a problem, and yet there may be some English songs sung by non-native speakers. It is still better to listen to a natural English-speaking accent. Thirdly, you should not choose something too fast and complex, especially at first — there is a risk of not keeping up with the pace and meaning.
How to listen properly
First, you should just listen to the song: enjoy the music, the sound, the singer's voice, and the emotions. And then you can start to analyze it in more detail. When listening to the song (and if we like the song, we will definitely want to listen to it many times), it is worthwhile to get involved in the analysis of individual words and phrases.
Of course, it can be difficult to understand what is being said in songs, because the music and the manner of performance can make it difficult to understand. This happens even in our native language — we can't always understand a particular line. In such cases, the lyrics come to the rescue — it's always easy to find them on the Internet by simply typing the song title and author into a search engine. Now you can listen and follow the lyrics with your eyes at the same time, understanding each line and paying attention to the subtleties of pronunciation.
The full article is only available to members of the Immigrant.Today community. Log in to your account to read it for free.
