Music has proven to be one of the most effective tools in language learning. Attentive listening to songs helps learners improve their comprehension skills and pronunciation. Even the passive consumption of songs familiarizes hearers with grammar patterns and idiomatic speech, and facilitates the important process of giving students a “natural sense” for the language. Best of all, good music makes you want to understand the lyrics: songs make learning interesting and fun.
In this conversation and translation course, we practiced German by listening to and talking about songs. Class sessions aimed to be a friendly environment in which students could speak German, expand their vocabulary, and make ‘mistakes’ without penalty. (Much of the course material was chosen by students, as they discovered and shared German songs they love. We learned about the cultural impact of popular music and musicians, from Folk Songs to Diskursrock, from Kinderlieder to German Rap. The song lyrics we discussed also gve us a way to practice and improve the science and art of translation.
This was a discussion-based and student-centered course. Over half of the weekly themes and the individual songs were chosen by students. The idea is pretty simple: in every session, we listened to songs and talked about them. A first goal of our conversation was be to understand the lyrics, so we’ll began with pretty basic literal translation: what do the verses mean? What’s going on with the syntax, diction, and grammar? On the basis of the lyrics and their expression in music, we then posed questions that led to far-ranging discussions inspired by the songs. We also explored the poetic elements of the lyrics. Finally, we returned to the art of translation: how can we replicate some of the effects of language and sound in English?