Learning Language with Music – Spanish Listening Practice
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What are good sources for learning Spanish? Music is an ideal audio source, because of its qualities of sound, rhythm and content. Listening to music is helpful to practice your listening skills. Not just that, but also you can practice all four language skills at the same time. Music is enjoyable and makes for a productive Spanish language learning time.
Learning Language With Music
One of the biggest challenges for language learners is understanding speech. After learning for some time, every learner discover speech is too fast. Practicing the skill of listening will solve this problem of not being able to understand another language.
Learning Spanish with Music
Specifically for Spanish learners, the words seem to all blend together. Spanish pronunciation, intonation, rhythm and stress patterns make it challenging. As a consequence, learners have a hard time separating the words. That’s why it seems impossible. We get frustrated because understanding another language is just too hard.
For these reasons, music helps the language learner to improve the listening and speaking language skills.
Music in Other Languages – Spanish Music
Everyone listens to music in their own language, but overlook music as a source for learning a language. In our case, Spanish music is an ideal as an audio source. Some learn best with audio according to their best learning styles. So, tapping into music as a source for words and sample sentence is the most productive learning method.
What does music teach you about Spanish?
In addition to language learning, music is a cultural experience. Every region where Spanish is spoken has many different music styles and artists. There is salsa, boleros, pop, indie, ranchera, golden age, rock, mambo and flamenco made by artists from all the Latin American countries and Spain. The music shares a cultural perspective with learners.
Everyone has their preference of music genre. Some music listeners are eclectic and others are picky. Choose your favorite artists and styles. In my playlist, there’s a wide variety to sample.
What music should I listen to for learning Spanish?
You will love learning Spanish with music and discover new favorites. A list of similar artists will appear below the current song. From this list you can discover new favorites and explore new types of music.
Listen to the song, then
- The other songs on same album
- Other albums by the same artist
- Similar artists
- The songs in the genre
As a result, you can create your own custom playlist of music for your Spanish practice time.
How Music Helps in Learning New Languages
Benefits of listening to music for language learners
The researchers of neuromusicology who study the effects of music on the nervous system (the brain, nerves, senses) tell us music is good for learning languages. Simply put, they tell us how music affects learning. There is a lot of research that proves these benefits of listening to music.
Music improves language skills
First of all, songs are good for us. They have a positive impact on our mood, life enjoyment and the learning process. Most importantly for us, music is helpful for language learning and building our language skills.
Music improves your…
- Phonological Perception. understanding new sound structures and speech
- Phonological Production. speaking the new set of sounds
- Phonological Processing. increased passive and active vocabulary (verbal working memory)
- Enhanced Spanish reading comprehension (reading skills)
- Sound and speech processing in the brain (thinking skills)
- Naming of words (expression skills)
Consequently, listening is the foundational language skills. And using music will build listening and all the rest of the language skills. This makes music a great source for language learning.
Of course, the song lyrics are a great source for new words and example phrases and sentences to analyze.
Your Solid Foundation for Skills Practice
This self-study system makes it easy and quick to start learning Spanish. They show you how to actively learn all the Spanish skills and keeps you on track to accomplish your goal. Everything is laid out for you, even basic word lists and goals and tracking system to keep you motivated. Look inside…
Or you can pull something together on your own.
Learn a Language by Listening – Spanish Music
The power of learning with music is through repetition and active listening. This means, you must be actively engaged while listening to music in order to build your language skills. There are many ways to accomplish your language learning goals with music.
How does music help learn languages?
Naturally, by listening actively to songs, your brain is doing some advanced work picking up all those details. The power of learning with music is through repetition and active listening.
Practice Spanish Listening Skills with music
From listening to music, you train your ear to distinguish the different sounds. This means you can understand others speech better. You will recognize the new sounds. And what’s probably more challenging is how the words emphasized and blended in conversations.
Practice Spanish Pronunciation Skills with music
Then, once those differences are learned, you’ll learn how to say the new sounds accurately. Pronunciation makes a big difference in how well others can understand you. Your speaking skills will grow too.
Practice Spanish reading Skills with music
Finally, music lyrics combined with listening builds your reading skills. Connecting the audio with print is a method for active learning. This app looks like a great way to listen along with lyrics https://lyricstraining.com/es
Practice Spanish Writing Skills with music
Similarly, the music lyrics can be used as a source for writing. Listening, following the lyrics and writing them is an engaging activity. They can be copied or used as examples for grammar analysis where you learn sentence patterns and word connections.
Practice All Language Skills with Music
These activities are ways for you to turn the listening experience into a powerful learning experience. Through engagement you will create new language pathways, growing your thinking and memory of sounds and words. As you listen pick up on different sounds and new words and phrases.
Music Listening – Spanish Skills Practice
Whichever activity you choose, combining reading, saying, listening and writing gives the most widespread benefits.
- Listen
- Sing along with the song
- Pause and repeat
- Listen and read the lyrics
- Write the lyrics from listening
- Copy the lyrics from printed lyrics
- Imitate a sound you’ve never heard before
- Play musical chairs with your kids or group
- Stop the music and finish singing that part
- Recite the lyrics like a poetry reading
- Listen and repeat while you exercise
- Pull words for new vocabulary
- Pull example sentences for grammar analysis
Overall, the more activity with listening increases the effectiveness of learning. Music listening can be a productive and complete language skills practice time. With an increasing vocabulary, you’ll be able to have conversations and improve your pronunciation. Music is fun and useful for language learners to build their language skills.
Tips for Language Learners
Free Spanish Music Playlist
What is the best way to practice understanding Spanish?
Lay a Solid Spanish Foundation
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