Learning English with songs

One thing I did a lot when I was learning English was singing English songs. It's a very pleasant way to learn new words and work on your pronunciation. Singing and singing the same songs again and again was making the way English people speak sink in.

Knowing by heart a few albums gives you a library of English sentences you are confident with. It expands your vocabulary, makes you learn the most common irregular verbs, makes you more confident with some basic English language skills like when to chose between I eat and I'm eating, how to use should, could, would, etc...

Learning a language via its songs is learning it with examples.

Many bands and singers ...

My favourite English band at the time was The Cure, so I learnt quite a lot of their albums. Then my best friend at the time made me discover The Doors, and I learnt their whole discography. Then came The Beatles, (some of the White Album songs are so hard to sing!!!) and countless others. Leonard Cohen is a good one. David Bowie too. He speaks slowly, I just love his lyrics, and I'm also in love with his deep voice. Then some less common, like The Levellers, Nick Cave or Jake Thackray, who is such a laugh to sing.

Music soundtracks are a good thing to sing to, from The Nightmare before Christmas, who is a real tongue twister and makes you learn many uncommon words, to ... The Sound of Music.

Various levels of focus

Learning with songs is a multi level of focus activity: you can be reading the lyrics while listening attentively to the song. Pausing to look up all the words you don't know in the dictionary. You're 100% focused.

But later you can be walking, driving, cooking, while at the same time listening and singing the same songs. You're only half focused on the songs, but it does not matter, it still sinks in.

And even when working hard on some maths or physics problem, you have The Cure or The Doors in the background. You don't pay attention to it, because your mind is focused on quantum mechanics, but still, the words are unconsciously repeated over and over in some idle part of your brain.

English sinks in.

In my next story, I'll tell you what I'll write on StoryPress, and why you'll want to follow me if you happen to be learning French.