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This video’s topic is a very interesting one.
Can we learn English by listening to songs?
And can we practice our pronunciation by singing along?
People have different opinions on this and ask me
a lot about this. This is a very pleasant way to learn
indeed. And yes you can learn some
English from songs and no you can’t, at the same time.
It very much depends. If you’re sitting
and listening to some songs in English every single
day, even for many hours but you don’t read the
lyrics, because let’s be real we don’t
understand everything that they sing in songs for many
reasons and we’ll get to them later.
If you don’t read the lyrics – you don’t understand half
of what is sung, therefore you don’t learn.
And If you don’t check the lyrics you can’t call this
working on your listening skills either. And
even native speakers don’t always understand everything.
Now that we’ve gotten this out of the way let’s talk
about how we actually can learn by listening to songs.
So, as you already probably guessed
the first thing that you have to do is read the lyrics.
If you like some song and you listen to it a lot,
daily maybe. Read it’s lyrics
and read it while you’re listening to the song as well.
It’ll help you memorize them more easily.
Step number two.
If you don’t know the meaning of some words – look them up.
And bam you’ve
learned some new vocabulary. And very often
singers use different expressions and phrases in their songs.
If you look them up as well you’ll learn some new expressions.
Let’s take ‘Shallow” by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper.
There’s a very deep meaning behind this song.
Moreover, fully understanding the lyrics
can be quite difficult sometimes,
because it’s poetry. And
sometimes authors in order to express
their thoughts and feelings use figurative language.
But let’s take just this phrase “I'm off the deep end”
which means – change your
behavior, to start doing something risky or
uncertain or lose control of yourself.
So there you go – you’ve learned a new expression.
In addition, you can learn some grammar. But
again - always check if you’re not sure about something.
Cuz every now and then in order for the words to rhyme
authors can use improper grammar – intentionally!
Let’s take “Let it snow” by Frank Sinatra.
It’s an old song but nonetheless
still very popular these days. Especially during
the holiday season
And you can hear these lines there.
when we know that it supposed to be “he doesn’t care”
But if you don’t know that it can be misleading.
There’s even a song called “He don’t love me” by Winona Oak
It’s certainly ok to use it in poetry.
And this different from standard
English is even a perfectly normal English for some
regions and classes in the US.
And you will even hear it in some movies.
But it’s usage in speaking moreover in formal writing
is considered uneducated. And we don’t want to come out as such.
Now for example in this song,
which happens to be one of my favorites,
“See you again” by Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth.
And I honestly choke up every time I listen to it.
There are these lines “It's been a long day without you, my friend
And I'll tell you all about it when I see you again”.
Just in these two lines we have
an example of the present perfect tense
and at the same time people use this statement
as a phrase to express fatigue because
they were extra busy that day or to express frustration.
And, then this line
It’s an example of the first conditional. There’s just used “when” instead of “if”.
And it shows us that we don’t use the future tense with
“when”, which is a common mistake. On top of that
you’ll get to repeat these words a lot by singing along
since we’re listening to our favorite songs over and over again
And what is that if not repetition. And what
is better than repetition to help us remember something better.
As long as you analyze and do research you learn a lot.
Now it’s time talk about pronunciation.
Yes you can practice your pronunciation by singing along to songs.
Like for example let’s take that same “See you again”
There’s a line
A very good line for practicing your pronunciation just as that whole couplet is good
The speed and contractions,
everything sounds very natural. But again,
oftentimes singers to sing a certain high or low
note change the vowel in a word
or change the stress in words so
they sound more melodic. So be careful
with this. And that’s why we can’t always
understand what is being sung. Well guys,
I hope that I managed to set things straight regarding this topic.
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