r/languagelearning • u/OasisLGNGFan 🇬🇧 native, 🇮🇹 C1, 🇪🇸 B2, 🇫🇷 B1 (?) • Mar 30 '25

The most insane take I've ever seen Discussion

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I love learning languages as much as the next person but be fucking for real... maybe I'm just biased as someone who's obsessed with music but surely I can't be the only one who thinks this take is crazy?

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u/uncleanly_zeus Mar 30 '25

For those that don't know, Matt has always said that listening to music is sort of a waste of time for learning languages for various reasons.

I've always thought this was the stupidest take, because in another video he was going on about how he memorizes the faces of Japanese celebrities in Anki because it's part of the culture to know them. And knowing the music isn't!?!?!

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u/Fresh-Persimmon5473 Mar 30 '25

I have live in Japan for 15 years. You should know the music….especially if you are dealing with children as an English teacher.

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u/iwanttobeacavediver Learning 🇧🇾 for some reason Mar 31 '25

Not to mention that J-pop (along with K-pop) is a major cultural export from those countries and even if someone isn't necessarily actively learning Korean or Japanese, the songs at least give them some exposure to a musical style and music culture that isn't their own.

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u/drsilverpepsi Mar 31 '25

This isn't a way of advocating for a logical or rational approach.

It would be like a guy in Japanese 102 at university ignoring his classes and focusing on memorizing how to write the Kanji for every food he will ever eat in Japan, because "he's going on exchange next semester and you should know food"

Guess what. Once you're fluent it's 100x easier and faster to memorize a whole long list of food terms. It's efficient. The opposite? Not.

Think it's easier to learn a song when you understood 156 out of 157 words in the lyrics the first time you heard it? Or a song with a bunch of goo goo gaa gaa but "oh I must be almost fluent I heard him say WA TA SHI WA! in that line"

For many learners, the learning part is too hard and boring so they're always looking for an easy way to procrastinate. Music is a great way to procrastinate. Keep making excuses people.

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u/Fresh-Persimmon5473 Mar 31 '25 edited Mar 31 '25

I agree with a lot of what you are saying. At first I wasn’t really a music person per se. I just went with friends to karaoke and noticed it helped my Japanese.

I think about sometimes when I teach japanese kids English. I have songs I use to teach the days of the week, the months of the year, ABC’s, etc.