Learning English with music, understanding music

Language learning gear for learning with music

When I was growing up I loved languages and I loved to liked to listen to music very much. To combine these two passions I needed gear.  The equipment ‘one-must-have’ was, then, in seventies/eighties, a tape recorder. Cassettes tapes were too new, rather expensive in Poland. A popular tape recorder was cheaper although much bigger, like a PC desktop, It was very retro. You could listen to tapes on a tape recorder but it offered a rather poor quality, no reduction system, but it allowed me to play favorite my cuts again and again.  When I had finished primary school with very good grades, my father bought me one.

Music of the 70s

And even now, to me, the seventies and eighties were the best years of music for me. I must start my story about music with an important album as ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ of Pink Floyd (1979, probably still on Billboard’s Top 200 albums). One of my rich friends bought a copy from abroad and allowed me to re-write (manually of course) the lyrics to my notebook (paper book of course, not a PC).

Paying the dues to learn a language

Then day after day, I was reading word after word, finding it in dictionary and writing the Polish meaning under the English one.

This is what it takes to learn a language blood, sweat and tears. But for me it was a more of a mission.

Some advised me to create my own dictionary by writing down the words I was finding, but I did not used this method because I thought finding a word, even the same many times, allowed me to read some other words on same page, so in fact I could learn more. I was a little obsessed.

Next I began to  analyze a whole line, the a paragraph, and the I tried to understand the meaning as a whole. There were many misunderstandings but in general I caught the ideas, and only then I could absorb full heart and soul of the group’s artistic expression.

Music was fantastic but music with lyrics ‘ shocked me, like a new religion.

My next endeavor was I had an occasion to copy lyrics of The Wall by Pink Floyd. After a month of hard work,  I translated into Polish, and again I liked it very much, although the strange messages and problems which the lyrics were about were still not for me,  I was a teen then.

Next level of learning a language with music

After two big successes, I was ready for the next level.  I had possibility to copy lyrics of the Genesis album ‘Foxtrot’. For the beginning I chose ‘Supper’s Ready’ and I totally failed  ‘.  I could translate word by word but I couldn’t find the idea. Unfortunately. So I told to myself ‘Not too quickly, son’. And then I returned to simple songs.  Undiscouraged by tactical defeats I pressed on.

Why I used pop songs to learn

For some next months I was ‘processing’ pop songs only. Many were simple and stupid, but many were very nice and some quite funny. You might  laugh, but I had no Beatles songs at that time. I worked on songs like ‘I’m Not in Love’ by 10cc, then came Donna Summer  ‘The song ‘Once Upon A Time’,  had an easier language but the text was not so silly. Donna Summer was singing very clearly, so then I started to listen carefully to her articulation. Donna Summer was good for this purpose, not complicated lyrics and rather understood singing.

I continue to learn languages with music. Now I choose wiser lyrics, but also like to listen to Abba or - the most clear articulation ‘ Susan Vega. But even after all these years, some texts are a closed book for me, too difficult to understand and then after some ‘sampling’ I usually give up.

Music worked for me to learn a language

But despite tactical defeats I won. I learned English in a large part because I translated lyrics and listen to songs.  Learning a language with music is almost a magic wand, if you are willing to work.

Tags: learning languages, learning with music