Find music you acutally like in the language you are learning
By Peter on Jan 11, 2009 in Languages
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One of the great challenges of learning a new language is immersing yourself in the new language enough so that you can almost absorb it through osmosis. In addition to putting index cards up around your house, setting up your mobile phone and your computer in your target language, watching movies in your new language, or installing a new shower curtain, you can also listen to music in the language you are learning.
If you happen to like the most popular music genres in your target language, this isn’t that hard. For example a search for “spanish music
This is all well and good, and you may actually like listening to the stuff you find in those searches every once in a while. But is it music that you would really rock out to? Would you like listening to it over and over during your commute to work everyday? Would it last on your mp3 player’s playlist for you exercise routine? I suspect that the most likely answer is no.
So what do you do? What if what really gets you going is heavy metal? Or rap? Or industrial techno? I didn’t see any of those music genres in the searches I just did on amazon. Often the first place I go to is google. A search for “spanish heavy metal” brought up some band names. This is a start, but how do you know if you will actually like any of these bands?
Last.fm is a great resource for this. Either start searching for bands based on the names you found in your google search, or search the tags for the genre and language, like “spanish heavy metal.” From here you can click on a page for a band. Last.fm provides streaming audio for music from this band, and from bands that are similar. If you don’t like the band you looked at, try another. Once you find one you like, you will probably also like some of the bands listed as being similar.
Another important tip: Don’t just search for music using English language terms like “spanish metal” or “german rap.” Use the terms in your target language like “metal español” or “deutsch rapmusik.”
There is one more place to search that has worked very well for me. Amazon.com’s users can put together lists of similar items that they like and share them, in a section called “Listmania.” A search of “español metal
Do you have other tips for finding music? Post them in the comments!
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I just browse the iTunes store for the target country to find interesting artists. Then If you can get a gift card for that country, buy the music directly.
Khalid | Jan 11, 2009 | Reply
I have tried searching for Japanese metal before, but every time I try what I end up with is either stuff sung in English, or songs sounding like they belong in the 80s. Usually both. But, I love music, so I’ll keep searching and I am sure one day I will find some awesome Japanese bands.
Goddess Carlie | Jan 11, 2009 | Reply
When I was studying French I had a hard time looking for French music. I ended up thinking that there was no good french music! LastFM sounds very nice, I’ll take a look at it.
Mairo Vergara | Jan 12, 2009 | Reply
@Khalid: That could work, but sometimes popular music in the target country isn’t the type of music you like. Amazon.com often sells DRM-free mp3 files, it’s worth looking there too.
@Carlie: I have that problem with Spanish metal sometimes. It’s hard to find stuff that doesn’t sound like it’s from the 80s but thankfully I’ve had some luck finding more modern material. Good luck in your search!
peter | Jan 12, 2009 | Reply
I find that watching music television ststions from the target country helps you to find music you like. We have loads of satellite channels and I love watching music channels in German and Italian.
As my wife is Polish I get to heara a lot of Polish music whether I like it or not. Over time I have become a big fan of some Polish artists, especially Doda, and I regularly listen to her stuff at work or on my MP3 player.
Aidan | Jan 14, 2009 | Reply
It’s a dicier bet, but sometimes you can find some fairly good stuff on YouTube. (I actually wound up studying Uzbek because I liked the videos linked by registan.net.) If the language is a bit uncommon, you can come up with a fair amount of stuff by searching for “singer,” “music” or even everyday words in your target language. And once you’ve found one, there will usually be more in the “related videos” category.
GeoffB | Jan 24, 2009 | Reply
I’m trying to learn more of the Arabic dialects (Egyptian, Iraqi, Levantine). To me the sound of Arabic music is pretty much the same. In the beginning I didn’t really like the music that much, but I kept at it because I felt I was learning new words and phrases. After a while I started to actually like the music a lot! Now I even play it in my car driving down the road in the Southern US (not sure how safe that is lol).
The Arabic Student | Jan 24, 2009 | Reply
@The Arabic Student: My wife does bellydancing so I get to listen to a lot of Arabian pop music whether I want to or not :). It’s grown on me a bit, so I like some of the songs now, but I get so tired of hearing the word “habibi”. :)
thomas | Jan 24, 2009 | Reply
@thomas Yeah they are pretty repetitive. Habibi, dawabni (melted me), albi (my heart), and roohi (my soul) are in pretty much every Arabic song lol.
The Arabic Student | Jan 25, 2009 | Reply
Awesome post. Not necessarily new info to me, but a good reminder. I motivated me to do a search and find some great new tunes.
I have also really been enjoying the P2P program Soulseek recently. Transfers are only one on one with the ability to browse users files and send them a message. It’s amazing how much you can learn about somebody just by looking at their files then you can talk to people with similar interests. I like to search for language programs and talk to other linguists. But once you find one good artist you can search for them there and then talk to somebody who has some of their music and ask what else they would recommend. It’s proven quite effective for me. :-)
Jonathan Mahoney | Mar 5, 2009 | Reply
This guys http://www.voxound.com are trying to solve this problem with a player that lets users tag music with languages and other stuff…
Pelagio Pavez | Sep 25, 2009 | Reply
I think your search should be ‘Rock en Espanol’ since Spanish Music sounds like music from the country: Spain. The same for ‘Spanish metal’. It should be ‘Metal en Español’ or ‘Metal en castellano’ or ‘Metal Argento’, otherwise it looks for Metal from Spain.
Bruno | Jan 2, 2010 | Reply