Listening to Music is Not Good for Language Learning. Here is Why.
Music is an important part of my day. When I am feeling low, I play Charlie XCX’s hyper-pop to help brighten my mood. When I want to mope, I listen to Glimpse of Us on repeat. And when I can’t muster the energy to do another grammar lesson in Spanish, I dance to Kitty by Angela Torres to get in the mood for learning.
However, as much as I enjoy listening and dancing along to songs in my target language, I have found listening to music to be an ineffective way of learning a language. While listening to songs can be motivating and keep us interested in our target languages, it is largely unhelpful at getting good amounts of input in our target language. There are two key reasons why I don’t advocate for music as a high-quality language resource:
1. Lyrics Tend To Be Very Metaphorical
One of the biggest issues I have found with trying to use music as a source of high-quality language input is the use of metaphor in lyrics. While complex, meaningful and creative lyrics make songs incredible and are actually my favourite component of any song, I have found that complex metaphors are very difficult for me to comprehend in my target language. When we are at the beginning and even into the intermediate stages of language learning, metaphorical language can be extremely difficult. Since music relies heavily on metaphor, much of a song’s meaning will be in decipherable. While not being able to understand 90% of a song isn’t important if you are just listening to it to have fun, if you are trying to use the lyrics for language acquisition purposes, you do need to understand a large part of what is being communicated in a song. Thus, the metaphorical nature of lyrics becomes an obstacle to learning.
2. A Lot of Words Aren’t Pronounced Clearly
I am a huge fan of artists who sing in English like SZA. I love her voice and enjoy the atmosphere her music creates. However, if you were to ask me as a native English-speaker to tell you want SZA is actually saying in any of her songs, I would not be able to tell. This is because while SZA sings beautifully, her way of pronouncing her words in a song is completely incomprehensible.
This phenomenon, of artists singing in a way that makes their words indecipherable, is referred to as singing in cursive. It is something that is found in all languages and, as language learner, it can making understanding what is being communicated difficult incredibly. When an artist sings in cursive, words become unclear and we can end up once again only understanding about 10% of what is being said. Once again, if you are focused on getting good comprehensible input, this makes songs often a poor resource for learning.
So does this mean I think we completely just stop listening to music in our target language?
Of course not.
Music might not be a great source of comprehensible input, but it is a source. Additionally, music is fun and when it comes to language learning, having fun is an important step in our learning journeys. If we are having fun, we are more stay motivated and keep learning. Additionally, as we get further in our language learning journey, we will be able to pick words and what is being communicated in a song, so music does becomes a better resource the higher our level.
I am and will always be a huge advocate for us choosing resources that are enjoyable for us to use. If music is making you happy, keep listening to it. Also, in a future blog, I will talk about methods we can use to make music a better source of comprehensible input.
Happy listening!
Originally published at https://www.momokomandere.com.
