How to Learn German: German Music
Recently, I made a friend called Max Heyde in London, who happens to be a young German student here in England doing his Masters. I asked him many questions and would like to share some ideas here: assuming that you've come a long way in your language learning process, and can understand basic German and some grammar, with a nice little set of vocabulary, what fun things can you do with German?
One thing that I've advocated is learning German by using music. Unfortunately, I happen to be an intermediate learner, so the songs that I am going to recommend might not be for lower level readers at the moment. Max Heyde recommended:
Mia, Rammstein, Toten Hosen, Die Aertzte, Farin Urlaub, Culture Candela, and Peter Fox.
As I've said earlier, one good way of learning German is to listen to German music and take note of the lyrics, and perhaps sing along. That might be a useful way to learn German enjoyably.
Well, that was Max's recommendation; mine is probably more ridonculous, so if you're willing to learn German via youtube and all those online music sites, here goes:
Nena (who can forget 99 Luftballons?), Yvonne Catterfeld, Annett Louisan, Wir Sind Helden (most famous for the sounds coming out from the Fifa2008 football game on my PSP (I am referring to Endlich Ein Grund Zur Panik); well at least now you can guess or confirm how old I am at the moment!), and Disney songs translated into German.
Now, how does this have to do with learning German? It seems more like a fun activity to do that doesn't have anything to do with learning languages, but it actually does.
First, if you're interested in learning a language, music is one effective way especially if the song is a earworm, a word we borrowed from German (apparently, or so I am told).
Second, don't just listen to the words. Go get the lyrics from google, and that will help you learn German because you will see the words and hear the sounds. I have an article on memorisation and memory techniques, and you can find it on this site.
Third, this will help you sustain interest in German. Learning German can be fun when you actually like it, and listening to German words being sung would be really useful if you are looking at longer term goals of cementing the vocabulary you've learnt, or actually listening to how words are being pronounced, either mumbled or pronounced clearly. It's brilliantly interesting to do it this way, I figure! (Although this does not mean that there are not other ways of learning German that can be fun as well, naturally.)
Fourth, at the very least, you get to hear great music ranging from R&B to rock to pop, and you can get to hear German on a daily basis being sung by great nice voices, preferably by people you admire or like! :) In other words, do it just for the heck of doing it, and if it can help you with learning German you've benefited; if not, you still get the benefit of listening and enjoying yourself.
I can recommend more songs and singers to help you learn German, and those are coming up in the next article right here on How to Learn German Fast. Thanks for reading and cheers!
How to learn German fast! - German language learning
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