# Song lyrics for learning



## zefee

I often hear of people learning other languages that they use song lyrics to help them learn the language aswel as other resources, I wondered how well this worked with Japanese, and would also like to ask if anyone could provide a website which provides both Japanese and english readings (romaji or kanji).

I used to look up lyrics a few years ago before I took Japanese seriously and managed to remember a few words but I wondered how well it would work for stringing sentances together?

zef


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## Wishfull

Hi.
You and I might be thinking the same thing.

I think studying lyrics has both merit and demerit.

(Merit) Motivation is very high to those who like Japanese songs. Motivation is a very important thing to study foreign language, which needs a lot of time and efforts.

Demerit is that most lyrics are not practical for our daily conversation. It is difficult to understand, and it is often anti-grammatical, and it is often informal, and and it is often unnatural as a general Japanese, and too many abbreviations.
Sometimes I feel that it is waste of time trying to understand lyrics which even natives can't understand.

It depends on your purpose of learning or it depends on the content of the lyrics itself, 
but generally speaking, it's ratio of effectiveness-effort might be very low in order to learn Japanese conversation.

Good textbooks might be very effective, but boring.
Songs, movies, TV shows are interesting, but too difficult for non-natives.
That is the problem. (In my case, English songs and movies).

Wishfull.


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## lindie_

My Japanese teacher told me that doing Japanese karaoke would help me learn to pronounce words and get better at listening the language. I like to listen to Japanese music and I can say that it has helped me learn numerous things about the spoken language at least. I've picked up some vocabulary from listening to it, but not a significant amount. One site I use to see a side by side translation of various songs is Animelyrics(.com) for many songs it provides both romaji and kanji lyrics.


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## arrikitukis

I think it's much better to watch "doramas" (or anime, if you like it) than songs. It really helps with comprehension. And, for your pronunciation, try to repeat what they're saying


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## zefee

I expected it wouldn't be very good for day to day use, which is what sparked the question, thanks for the replies guys.

zef


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## lammn

I find translating Japanese lyrics into English (or other languages) very useful in understanding Japanese language. As Wishfull has pointed out already, Japanese lyrics is _difficult_ to understand. The difficulties are due to, for example, omission of particles, omission of subject, inverted structure of lyrics, extensive use of metaphors, etc. If you can understand Japanese lyrics, it will be much much *easier* for you to understand "normal" Japanese writings.

In fact, I came from a Japanese lyrics discussion board and I find my understanding of the Japanese language improves a lot via the correction of my translation by other people. As for you, I suggest you to figure out the meaning of the lyrics by yourself first, and then compare your own interpretation with other people's translation, to see if there is any discrepancy and try to figure out the reasons. I believe you will learn a lot through these exercises.


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## asumi

Me too.  I also like to learn languages by listening to music.  It's really interesting.  can anyone suggest me any easy listening Japanese songs?


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## gotoba

I suggest you listen to this song xxx

I think anime songs are great, especially for enlarging our vocabulary and picking up a better pronounciation (although sometimes, words are intentionally bad pronounced) , but it's true that sometimes it's difficult to understand the usage of grammar thus translating becomes a tough task.


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## asumi

Thanks gotoba


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## pokeeisun

Shoot, I would send you a link to a really great website that allows you to listen to current Japanese music, and has english translation, kanji, and romanji lyrics, but it won't let me because I haven't posted thirty times yet. 

type "jpopasia" into google, and click on the first website (it should say something like "breaking asian celebrity news"

Then when you reach the website click charts and have fun


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