Can singing help you learn a new language?

Singing is a fun way to familiarise yourself with the grammar and, above all, the vocabulary of another language. Photo: AFP

Music is one of the most playful ways to learn a new language. Start-ups are aware of this and now offer learning programmes specially designed for music lovers. And especially for fans of certain artistes.

Among them is Maluma. The Colombian reggae artiste is being honoured on Memrise, on the occasion of the debut of his tenth studio album, Don Juan.

To mark the release, the language learning platform has designed Spanish lessons specially for fans of the singer. They are all built around tracks from Maluma's latest opus, including COCO LOCO, Según Quién (featuring Carin Leon), Parcera (featuring Gordo) and Trofeo (featuring Yandel).

For example, the lesson on COCO LOCO allows Memrise users to learn 67 Spanish words that appear in the lyrics of this love song. The lesson on Trofeo allows non-Spanish speakers to learn 59, compared with 43 for Según Quién. These are mainly words and expressions taken from everyday language, although there are also some slang terms specific to Maluma's homeland.

Memrise hasn't said whether this learning programme is an official partnership with the singer or simply an initiative to celebrate the release of his new album, as pointed out by specialist site MusicAlly. In any case, the platform hosts other lessons inspired by the musical repertoire of artists such as Las Ketchup, Enrique Iglesias and Rosalía.

Other foreign language learning sites have used similar methods. Since 2018, the startup Lirica has been offering users the chance to learn Spanish, English, Italian or German from the greatest hits by artistes fluent in these languages.

It's a fun way to familiarise yourself with the grammar and, above all, the vocabulary of another language. In fact, singing is one of the best ways to become multilingual. In fact, a British study published in the journal Memory & Cognition in 2013 found that singing can help you retain twice as many foreign words as a more conventional learning method.

This phenomenon has not escaped top K-pop group BTS. The boy band promotes the Korean language beyond the borders of their homeland not only through their songs, but also through the web series "Learn Korean with BTS."

This series helps fans of the group learn expressions frequently used by their idols, as well as the rudiments of their mother tongue. The 30 lessons in this web series were designed by the Korean Languages Content Institute and Professor Heo Yong of Seoul's Hankuk University.

They have been available free of charge on the Weverse app since March 2020. One more way to boost South Korea's soft power. - AFP