Ranking genres of music by usefulness for language learners

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[maxygrec]

I agree with all of that except for rap: in a lot of countries rap lyrics tend to be more about philosophy with sophisticated metaphores and sometimes require a lot of background knowledge to understand them. Though it is very beneficial for advanced learners, but, IMO, they are an absolute no-go for beginners, who will spend too much time deconstructing the meaning of one single line. Moreover, where on this list do jazz, blues and a capella singing belong?

[quidneuf]

Very nice idea ! Personally I would rank trad music higher because the sentences are often simpler AND are repeated a lot in the chorus, and while I agree that the vocab can be dialectal or simply too ancient to be use on a daily basis, this exact fact is also guaranteeing that this music is part of the studied language core history and thus helps language learners with apprehending the target language's culture.

[lecros]

This is a great ranking, but i would add childrens musik alongside rap in the highest category. Everything is well annancuated, repeated numerous times and often accompanied by mimic movements, wich is excellent for beginners. It obviously does not help an intermediate or advanced learner, but that does not change how effective it is al teaching beginners. It is made for children, who essentially are beginners too.

[highgroundproductions]

I have learned a lot of German by listening to classical opera and Lieder music, by the angelic voice of Diana Damrau, and I look up the lyrics, if I don't understand them already because she actually enunciates well.

[mf]

Exception for Rock: Rammstein! They even teach people how pronounce the name in early songs haha

[awopcxet]

For Swedish, i would say that what you call traditional music probably would refer to Dansband (Swedish traditional "country" music to dance to) and Visor. Visor i would say is probably really good for learning as they tend to focus on lyrics and telling a story. They also sometimes can be a bit comical which is fun. A good example would be Cornelius Vreeswijk - Brev från kolonien.
Also the language isn't that dialectal either imho.

[nomore.]

For Serbian, I think traditional classic rock music (ex-yu rock) and folk music are the best genres if you wanna learn something
There's also a lot of great modern rap songs but they can be a little confusing if you don't know any slang or culture of Serbia

[nonameuserua]

I thought I was the only one who learned German like that. Special thanks to Sido who was the first one to make me feel the language was no worse for learners than others

[junovzla]

Venezuela's (and Latam's) version of Traditional I'd say is Cumbia, Vallenato, Salsa, and Joropo (last one is Venezuela-specific), while Pop's equivalent is probably Reggaeton.

[TheUltimateLegend]

Now, just a thing... Classical music is totally not only instrumental. There are many chorales, operas, oratoriums etc, so you could technically get something out of it! The only problem is that probably some of the vocabulary isn't relevant anymore

[insising]

It's always a good morning when you wake up to a Watch Your Language upload.

However, I would like to provide a contrasting perspective. Personally, I don't see a use for the term "music" if the sole focus of the song is on the lyrics. More precisely, the utterance of the words is most often, perhaps an exception for those who only listen to rap, adherent to the flow of the melody in some way. This leads to lyrics being pronounced poorly, even if the sounds are right. As an example that does not pertain to music, every once in a blue moon I get confused listening to British English because the stress accent is opposite to what I'd expect. The same can happen in music when it matches the melody of the song.

As you mentioned, a significant portion of music falls victim to inaudible pronunciation, so it's more accurate to blatantly say that this music is more of a waste of time than some others. Note, as well, that a lot of music is high energy, so a lot of lyrics are hard to hear perfectly, or pass by so quickly that a learner loses the lyric if they didn't understand the meaning.

All of this is to say that the majority of learning from music is done through reading and translating the written lyrics, and THEN listening for them in the song. Sure, you may enjoy singing along to the music and this definitely may improve your pronunciation, but the bulk of your learning is making the lyrics comprehensible. At this point, you might get more value out of reading along to anything which has audible narration, as natural speech is more important to understand than strangely pronounced lyrics which natives might tell you don't even make sense.

Music is fun, and it makes the learning feel extra easy. But it's realistically inefficient and most of its treasures (new words, increased comprehension, improved pronunciation, etc...) can be achieved using other resources of interest to the learner. Music is better to utilize when you don't have motivation to do more intense learning, and just want to be lazy. Music is better than nothing.

[lestry]

My English wouldn't have been as good as it is now, if I hadn't grown up listening to rap music and fallen in love with it. Nowadays I still listen to rap music in any new language that I try to learn and even in a few languages that I haven't yet thought about learning. I have always learned to speak my languages in a more colloquial way. I don't like textbook-ese, therefore I pick up colloquial/informal/slangy expressions very early on when learning a language and rap is perfect for that. Also the part about pop culture is so spot on. I have learned more about American pop culture from references in Eminem's songs than from any other source. It's truly an incredible genre for language.

[Liggliluff]

I'd say pop rock is easier to understand than hard rock. I understand you didn't want to split it, but rock is such a wide genre than it's hard to place it like this. Rap is another one that is very varied; the rap I've heard is quite fast, and some songs have a heavy emphasis on the beat. I'd argue pop music is easier than rap. I'll agree that theatrical music is the easiest overall.

[pressureteamtron]

Rap is for sure the best one to me even if you cant understand the background . The Culture will teach you .

[phencyclidine]

I 100% agree. My German improved greatly listening to German rap.

[zahleer]

I was about to say I don't agree yet I remembered rap actually helped me. I'd say music isn't my favorite tool to learning languages but it's also true it depends on your favorite genres. I still think However, just because of how different it is from real speech it shouldn't be your main activity. Totally agree on the tier list though.

[sndrrz]

Not all classical music is instrumental though, German Lieder have been pretty helpful for me

[Uncles]

Definitely a big agree on rap. I'm studying Cantonese right now, which is a disglossia. Which means that the typical Cantopop sounds you hear use standard Chinese, which is never how people speak in everyday life. Rap completely avoids this and uses vernacular Cantonese.

I'm sure you've also encountered Idahosa Ness & his Mimic Method? He uses songs & rap to help language learning.

Lastly, please make a playlist for language learning tipcs.

[Smin-fh]

I slightly disagree with classical music. There are classical music with lyrics, (mostly in German or French tho) and I actually learned a bit of German from it.

[Gueroizquierda]

Disney+ has been really helpful for comprehensible input, but the subtitles don't match the audio. To me, the best music is whatever you like and will want to listen to. Get a good song stuck in your head and just let your brain digest all those words