So, here’s my method for studying a language with music you like.
1. Find a song you like in your target language.
2. Check if it’s on lyrics translate (both transcribed and translated)
3. Set up your page! Write in the title and author, maybe the language, update your table of contents, etc.
4. Copy the lyrics onto the page!
I use lines to indicate stanzas because it saves space. I also color-coded nouns by gender (feminine=black, neuter=purple, masculine=blue) the rest was in gray.
5. Underline words you know. That doesn’t mean words you think you might know. It means words you can recognize almost immediately.
6. Play the song and follow along with a pencil or your finger, whatever works. Make sure you’re connecting the sounds you hear to the words on the page. Repeat as needed (I only do this once since I’m pretty familiar with german, if you’re new to the language I recommend 2-3 times)
7. Play the song again but without the pencil, only follow along with your eyes. Do this until you feel comfortable.
8. Cover the lyrics and play the song again. I have a special ‘covering-up-stuff-in-my-notebooks’ page but that’s just me, you can just flip the notebook over. Play the song 2-3 times and try to hear the words you know and visualize the words as you hear them.
9. This part involves talking to yourself (70% of my study habits make me look crazy its fine). Now go through word by word and literally just say everything the word brings to mind. i.e.
“euch is such a nice word I enjoy saying it”
“Tür looks like it has a smiley face in the middle. I say that every time I see a ü jeez.”
“I have no idea what they’re saying here”
This is when you look up the words you don’t know and look at the translation. You try to figure out what they’re saying when and what all the words mean. and yes, ALL of this you do out loud. Read the definition out loud, react to it. i.e.
“OHHH that’s what they’re saying there”
“Hey, now I know what schweigt means! wow!”
You’d be surprised how much this helps you. It helps you remember stuff, figure out what you don’t know, keep your thought process linear, its great 10/10 recommend.
10. Repeat steps 6, 7, and 8 again (only play the song once per step). This time pay extra attention to the new words you’ve learned and the meaning of the song.
11. Hey, you’re done now! Revisit every couple of days and maybe just do steps 7 and 9 (that’s what I do but it’s up to you) Of course you can edit this to make it work for you, I invite you to do so. I personally don’t like making vocab lists for everything but if it helps you then go for it! Have fun with it, music is fun! languages are fun! Good luck
Notes:
Here is a link to the song I used in the pics. (Yes I know the song is about how people can be mindless groupthinkers it’s just the song I was using today haha.)
I love using music to learn languages so I really hope this helps someone 🙂
(Sorry if I left anything out or if there’s a typo feel free to message me if that’s the case and I’ll fix it right away! I’m always open to suggestions!)
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