Listening to music can be a fun and interesting way not only to experience some culture, but also to improve your Spanish. Researchers at Edinburgh University[1] found that participants who learned foreign language phrases and sang them back performed better than those who just spoke them. The singers also remembered the phrases more accurately in the long term.
So whether you like rock, rap, or country music, there are bound to be Spanish-speaking artists creating songs you’ll enjoying singing along to in order to improve your Spanish!
How to learn Spanish with music
There are various ways you can use music to work on your Spanish.
Pronunciation: sing along, making a special effort to mimic the singer’s pronunciation as closely as possible.
Listening comprehension: listen as many times as you need to in order to make sense of the lyrics.
Grammar and vocabulary: write down the lyrics and highlight any tricky vocabulary and grammar so that you can look it up.
LyricsTraining is an ingenious way to gamify your Spanish by listening to music. Start by choosing a game mode (beginner, intermediate, advanced, expert) and then listen to the song while typing the missing lyrics. You can just challenge yourself or create a free account to play against others.
Music videos
With a bit of googling, you can find thousands upon thousands of Spanish music videos for just about any genre you can think of. Here are a few links to help you get started.
- Billboard – Top Latin Songs
- Shazam – Spain’s Top 100 Songs
- Top-40Charts: Spain
- YouTube – Top 500 Most Popular Spanish Songs of All Time
Spanish resources
Reference
1 Ludke KM, Ferreira F, Overy K. (2014). “Singing can facilitate foreign language learning,” Memory & Cognition, Jan 2014, p. 41-52
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Author info
Laura is a French expert and Kwiziq's Head of Quality Control. Online educator since '99, Laura is passionate about language, travel, and cooking. She's American by birth and a permanent ex-pat by choice - freelancing made it possible for her to travel extensively and live in several countries before settling permanently in Guadeloupe. Laura is the author of Lawless French, Lawless Spanish, and other websites and books on French, Spanish, Italian, English, and vegetarianism. She spends most of her spare time reading, playing with food, and enjoying water sports.