Learning a foreign language through song is a great technique to improve your listening comprehension and speaking ability.  Why you ask?  Well from my own experience while living in France I sang often and everytime I learned something new about the language.

1.  Slow it Down:  Everyone loves a good slow jam.  Singing, especially when you have the lyrics to read, helps you by slowing down the speed and allowing you to really hear the words.  Normally when listening to native speakers they speak too fast for many beginners to truely pick up the little nuances in their pronuciation and accent.  This is really just a different take on the same principle I’ve mentioned before about listening and mimicing. 

2.  You’re so Dramatic:  Normally being a drama queen isn’t appreciated by most but in this situation a little exaggeration goes a long way.  Singing allows you to exaggerate your words, pronunciation and accent, without looking like a complete weirdo. Exaggeration allows you to become familar with the often difficult sounds of a foreign language.  As you master and gain control over the sounds you will naturally begin to sound more and more like a native speaker.  So sing in your car, in a choir or in the shower but make sure you exaggerate.

3.  By Association:  One of my favorite excercises is to read out loud.  Reading out loud allows you to associate the words you normally hear spoken with the a visual image.  Also, you get to, again, practice you speaking ability.  You are multi tasking.  Singing is another form of reading out loud and allows you to see the words that you normally only hear.  Also, because songs are stories you will learn new words and the song will help you to commit them to memory and understand their meaning based on context.

Here are some examples and resources for succesful Sing Study.  That has a nice ring to it.  If anyone asks it’s mine and I’ve copyrighted the term. : )

Jeremy writes about learning Japanese by singing.  This is a great way to learn to speak a foreign language.

Dr. Prevots has posted a useful archive lyrics to many French songs on his website.