So, not too long ago, my wife's best friend (who is Korean) got her into K-pop, and consequently K-pop music videos. Since then, they were playing on our TV all the time, but as I had studied Korean forever ago, it was fun for me too because every now and again, I could hear words that I recognized. Eventually, after watching the same videos so often the music grew on me, and I downloaded it to listen to it during my commutes as well.
How it started:
While I was watching the videos the videos, the visuals made it fun enough that I didn't pay too much attention to the lyrics; but when I only had the music to listen to, understanding a word or two wasn't enough. As I was hearing the same phrases over and over (to the point that I recognized them) curiosity got the best of me, and I wanted to know they meant.
The first song I tried to figure out was the first K-pop song I ever downloaded- "Likey" by Twice. Originally, I looked up the lyrics in Korean and English, and wrote them all down. I tried to look up words with google translate, but a lot of them were colloquial (ie slang), others were conjugated (sought vs. seek) and some were just nonsense sounds to make the song flow. As such, as much as I liked the song, this proved to be too difficult, so eventually I just stopped working on it. This lead me to step 1 of this process.
STEP 1: Choose the right song.
A month or so later, (and 4 or five songs later) my wife was listening to another Twice song, Signal, that grew on me, so again, I downloaded it. Compared to the other ones, the speech in this one was unusually clear, the theme was easy to understand, (A girl trying to get through to a guy she liked), and the lyrics were repetitive (meaning that there would be way less to try and figure out). This was how I stumbled onto the first step: Choose a song that:
- you like enough that you can listen to it over and over
- is really clear
- is relatively simple
- has a clear theme you can understand
STEP 2: Get a good translation site
The next step in this process was finding a better way to see the lyrics. The last one I used was a video so if I wanted to see a certain lyric again, I need to rewind and fast forward to find it, which was a pain. This time, I found another one called www.LyricsTranslate.com and I preferred it for three reasons: 1) Because you can see both the English and Korean lyrics
2) The lyrics are shown statically (ie all of them at once and not just line by line) and
3) You can watch the video on the site.
STEP 3: Get help from a Native
In contrast with my first attempt with Likey, for Signal, this time I also decided to enlist the help of a native. My wife had used the app, Flamingo to find herself a Korean teacher who spoke both English and Japanese, and as I thought it was easier to translate from Korean to Japanese (because they are similar like English and Spanish) I enlisted his help as well. Going one verse per lesson, I would write down any words, phrases or expressions, that I couldn't find on google translate. Then during the lesson, I would ask him what they meant and the subtle nuances of how they are used.
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| Flamingo- a language app that can be used to find local teachers of languages you want to learn. |
Concentrating one lesson on one verse this way, I could extrapolate 2 or 3 grammar forms, 5 or 6 new words, and at least one expression or two per verse. Then I would give myself the homework of trying to apply the new language in making sentences.
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| Use music lyrics to extrapolate grammar forms, vocabulary, and colloquial expressions, then have the teacher check your usage. |
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| After pulling out the vocab, grammar, etc from the lyrics and having the teacher explain them, I would write write sentences utilizing the new language for homework. |
STEP 4: Hello Talk
While this was great and tremendously helpful, another problem was that I could only meet with him once a week... so if I had a question while trying to do the homework, I would get stuck. To solve this problem, I enlisted another app called Hello Talk, which connects native speakers of various languages from all over the world to each other. You can post a question like "Hey, how do you use this word?" Or "What exactly does ______ mean?" and usually someone will answer you in a minute or two. Doing the same for other Korean speakers with their English, I could also make Korean speaking friends in Korea as well.
STEP 5: Go back and enjoy the song as usual
So the last step in this process was to go back and listen to the song as usual. After 2 or 3 weeks, I had a complete understanding of all of the words, expressions, and grammar forms used in the song, but there was still the fact that they were singing faster than I could think and translate in my head. As such, the solution was just to go back to listening to the song as usual. If I was riding a train I would would pull up LyricsTranslate.com again and read along as I was listening until I could clearly hear everything. Otherwise, I would just listen while I was doing dishes, riding my bike, etc. Low and behold, every time I listened I could understand a bit more (without having to think about it) than I could the previous time. Now (about a month later) when I listen to the song, I have more or less 100% listening comprehension.... which makes it way more fun to listen to.
The Benefits of Learning this Way
While I originally never set out to develop this as a system, I have figured out that there's two massive benefits to it in contrast to regular language study methods: Retention & Listening Comprehension.
Usually, when you are learning a foreign language, you can only retain the words or phrases that you can apply to your daily life, and no matter how hard you try, the rest simply slips from your mind. Learning this way however, you are continually reinforcing all the new language that you learn by regularly listening to it. Add on top of that the fact that for most people musical memories naturally have a retention rate of 91+% (compared to all other forms of memory) and you have an incredible method for language acquision. (Think of the theme song to the Fresh Prince of Bel Air- literally an American in their 40s now can sing that and none of us have seen the show in decades).
I think the only downside of this technique is that outside of meeting with the teacher once a week, and asking questions on Hello Talk, the amount of time I spend speaking is relatively low; and I think in order to really master a foreign language, you have to spend as much time producing it as you do taking it in. Beyond that, it also takes a basic working vocab and understanding of the language you are trying to learn. As such, I might not try this with a language I had never studied before (unless it's similar to your native language like Spanish is to English) But doing this alongside traditional language study, I think it could be a really powerful too. And it's fun. Anyway, onto the next song, Alone by Sistar, haha.
#languagelearning #K-pop #Twice #Sistar #foreignlanguage #learnkorean
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