Everybody loves to listen to songs. Many of the songs we listen to are in English. When we listen to them and we don’t know English, we appreciate the melody and the music, but, of course, we miss out on a big part of the song, which is the lyrics. Lyrics are the words that are used to express whatever the song wants to express. It can be a love song, a song of protest, a song about nature… you name it, there probably will be a song about it!
So, since you listen to songs in English because there are many that you like, why not taking the opportunity to practice your English at the same time?
This is what you can achieve when you practice with songs:
- you can improve your vocabulary
- you can learn new expression that will make you more fluent
- you can get to sound more natural with better pronunciation and intonation
- you can appreciate the natural melody of the English Language
- you can train your ears to understand meaning even without all the words
…all this while enjoying your favourite songs!
Follow me and continue reading for the easy strategy you need to apply to achieve the desired results:
Without Video (preferred choice)
- choose a song that you know very well – when your ears already know the general sound of the words the progress is quicker
- find a moment when nobody will interrupt you – Tip: this includes the phone as much as possible!
- take pen and paper
- play the song once
- write what you think you understand in the general sense, for example this song is a love song, it’s about…
- play the song again, bit by bit, and write the sentences – Tip: write what you hear and leave blank spaces when you don’t get the words
- read what you wrote and see if you can fill the gaps the way you think it makes sense
- play it again and read your version at the same time – still a lot missing? It’s ok, that’s why you are practicing!
- play the song again and try to complete it – do it until you are happy with the results…
- at the end of this process – Tip: please, only at the end so you don’t ruin the process! – find the lyrics on the internet (if you’ve never done it before, just type the song name followed by ‘lyrics’ in the search box) and compare.
Sometimes you don’t have the song you want to do, but you can find it on the Internet, on YouTube for example… Ok, but make sure you don’t get distracted by watching the video!
With Video (not really recommended)
- choose a song that you know very well – when your ears already know the general sound of the words the progress is quicker
- find a moment when nobody will interrupt you – Tip: this includes the phone as much as possible!
- find the relative video
- don’t look at the screen when you play the song – Tip: even better if you switch off the monitor so you’re not tempted…
- proceed as above…
Enjoy the results! The more songs you do, the better the results, of course… Try, you will be positively surprised!
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