What’s on your playlist?

By Peter on Jul 10, 2009 in Language Fun

Listening and understanding Spanish is a big weakness for me. I can read Spanish much better than I can listen to it. So, to get better at it I’ve been spending more time listening to Spanish music and podcasts. Since I last wrote about finding music you like in your language of study, I have discovered Pandora. Pandora is great because you start with an artist or multiple artists you like, and it starts playing similar artists. As you listen, you can give thumbs up or down to each song, and Pandora will adjust what it plays next based on your choices, essentially learning what you will probably like to hear. Another great thing about Pandora is that it will often play artists in your target language that are difficult to find in your home country, even stuff that I’ve found difficult to find on Amazon.

In English I listen primarily to metal and hard rock, but in Spanish I’ve noticed that while I still like some metal, I’ve been leaning more towards rap, even though I can’t stand most rap in English. I’m not entirely sure why this is yet, I’m still getting a feel for what’s out there. I’ve also been listening to a couple of podcasts, these are also to practice listening to Spanish.

Here are some of the things I’ve been listening to:

Definitely check out Pandora for yourself. (Update: Thomas tells me that Pandora only works within the US. It may be possible to get around this using a proxy.)

What have you been listening to in your target language?  Tell us in the comments!

Related posts:

  1. Find music you acutally like in the language you are learning
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4 Comment(s)

  1. Hello, Peter! I found you on Twitter while looking for polyglots and languages and the like. I really like languages, too. I can speak Spanish (Native speaker – Argentine) and English as a second language.

    It really drew my attention that on your playlist is this Argentine band called ANIMAL.
    In my opinion the best metal band from Argentina was ‘Hermetica’ and their best album for me was ‘Victimas del Vaciamiento’.

    Another thing that draws my attention nowadays is that I’ve found lots of blogs of American people studying Spanish. Where do they speak it more? Texas? California?

    If you have some questions about the Spanish language, just ask.

    Kind regards,
    Bruno

    Bruno | Jan 2, 2010 | Reply

  2. @Bruno: Having lived in both Southern California and Texas, Spanish is very prevalent in both, at least in the urban areas. I don’t travel around the country enough to know how much Spanish is used elsewhere, though.

    I will definitely look out for ‘Hermetica’, thanks!

    Peter | Jan 2, 2010 | Reply

  3. Cool! By the way, you should watch these two polyglots on YouTube. I am really impressed by them.

    Luca:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3w8yHrqFiQ

    Richard:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAtWuQmdexs

    After watching them, one definitely wants to learn another language since you can see that it’s possible to speak it like a native, especially when one gets kinda frustrated while studying another language.
    Regards,
    B

    Bruno | Jan 4, 2010 | Reply

  4. Hey, if you want (and haven’t yet heard of them), you could check out Casa de Leones. I listened to them when I was studying Spanish, along with your Control Machete and a couple other bands.

    Ross | Feb 13, 2010 | Reply

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