Learning Through Music - Japanese

Konnichiwa!

Since I was little I was like a little music sponge that absorbed words everywhere through everything, so it's natural to say that one of the main resources that helps me with vocabulary in essencially every language is music!

My interest for Japanese may be rooted in anime, and through not only the anime itself, but also the openings and endings I learned perhaps 60% of the vocabulary I know today. I love singing along to catching sons like "Paper Moon" (Soul Eater 1st Op) and "Ichirin no hana" (Bleach 3rd Op), and those tunes along with hundreds of others helped me learn!

After that I graduated to other bands and performers, the one that catched my attention the best was Vocaloid and to this day I'm utterly OBCESSED with their songs! Cover, dubbed and slow versions also can be found on my cellphone, and are a great method to learn something!

First of all when you are looking to learn through songs it's best you find the versions that bring translation and romanization of it like this song for example:

This example brings English and Romaji subtitles which is what you should look for in order to catch on some vocabulary. But the song is too quick (although very cool) you barely have enough time to keep up with one of the subs, let alone both!

So my second advice is to look for slower songs, normally more childish songs work perfectly!

With this song I learned a CRAZY amount of vocabulary, listening and reading over and over again! It has helped me with phrase structure and basic vocabulary!

But this song also has a bonus! It has the lyrics written with kana right next to it! So slowly I can train my kana reading too!

But what if you don't like these types of songs and you just cringe hearing them? Well then you can just find the slower virsion of any japanese song you like, and if it doesn't have subs just try and search for them online!

I personally love this song in both versions, and it's again a very good example to help me with vocabulary!

I'll leave here my playlist with almost 300 videos, most of them subbed (some in portuguese though) if you want to check them out and find any that you enjoy!

Vocaloid Playlist

Well that is all for now, next time I'll bring you my Italian playlist so look forward to that!

Nana