Personally, I have never used music as a language learning method; therefore, it was truly
interesting to do the research about this topic.
The majority of polyglots (77.9%) responded to the question “Do you use music to learn
a new language?” positively. I had anticipated much fewer people to use this method, which
was proven wrong.
The majority of respondents specified their answer. Most of them concentrate on reading
the lyrics; alternatively reading and translating the lyrics (“I watch a video on YouTube and
then I read the lyrics”). Some of them learn vocabulary, grammar and sentence structures
thanks to this method.
Some of the respondents stated that they used this learning method to learn more
about the language, such as pronunciation or accents (“Vocabulary and because of the rythim
I will know how to pronounce the words, If I learn to sing the song then I translate
so then I will be learning” or “reading the lyrics, trying to understand and repeating words,
trying to imitate the accent”). They either just listen to the lyrics or deliberately repeat certain
parts to improve pronunciation. Some on the other hand use this method only for passive
listening (“just enjoying the music, and let it get into my brain. I don’t think about it too
much”), others read the lyrics while listening (“reading along to lyrics and translating them”),
write down the lyrics, or compare original and translated lyrics. The type of music was also
specified; some of the respondents preferred to listen to kids’ songs in order to improve their
vocabulary.
One of the comments was interesting as they answered that “Reading lyrics, reading books
about singers to understand better who they are and what kinds of song the sing”, which
would suggest that the music language learning method also helps with understanding
the culture
