7 reasons why you should sing to learn languages

Singing is an amazing way to dramatically improve your language learning strategy.

Reasons to sing

Music and singing have made a huge difference in my language learning progress over the last seven years, as well as in getting along with the natives of the language. Here are a few reasons why:

1. Music connects across cultures and can break down barriers. When I have sung people songs they wouldn’t expect me to know and that they like, it has instantly broken the ice. In my first weeks in Berlin, even the start of the Sesame Street song in German helped me to make new friends! If I ever meet Madrileños I usually give them the theme song of Aquí no hay quien viva in an Irish twang. It always impresses them way more than perfect grammar ever will!
2. Getting to know the music is getting to know the culture and language and sometimes learning languages is like learning a musical instrument.
3. Learning the lyrics of a song helps you expand your vocabulary and teach you some slang/typical phrases.
4. Singing can actually help you reduce your foreign-sounding accent! One of the ways I managed to convince Brazilians that I was a Carioca back in December was due to taking intensive singing lessons instead of Portuguese lessons. My music teacher taught me more about sentence rhythm, pronunciation, tones and beat of Portuguese than a foreign language teacher ever would have been able to.
5. As described in the free chapter of the Language Hacking Guide (subscribe to the Language Hacking League on the right of the site to receive a copy), you can use music and singing to help you learn to speak simple basic essential phrases to get by in a language much quicker.
6. You can take music with you anywhere and learn and practise it on the move thanks to your MP3 player / mobile phone. While it’s pleasant to have music in the background, make sure to actually pay attention to the words if you want to learn something beyond just being able to hum the tune!
7. It’s fun! You can put your whole body into singing if you like and let your hair down a lot easier than you would in many speaking situations. You can really enjoy yourself by singing and it helps to improve your mood. Life would be way cooler if people sang more! Did you ever notice how happy everyone is in musicals?

So don’t be shy, and don’t worry if you don’t have a good singing voice.



Reference: http://www.fluentin3months.com/sing-to-learn-languages/