This natural and fun activity really helps you learn another language

First try this 4-second test

Which letter comes straight before U in the alphabet? Come on, quickly!
There’s a fair chance that to make sure of your answer you’ll go back to the alphabet song you learned as a child.
Intuitively, we seem to know that singing things helps us to remember them – think of all the song lyrics you know.
But does singing in another language help you to learn it?

The Hungarian research

Experiments done at the University of Edinburgh and published in the journal Memory and Cognition reveal that singing in another language can significantly improve how you to remember it.

Three groups of 20 adults, randomly assigned, took part in a series of five tests. They were asked to memorise phrases in Hungarian which they would later have to recall.

Why Hungarian? It was chosen as a language that participants were unlikely to have come across, and which has a completely different structure and system of sounds to Germanic or Romance languages like French or Spanish.

Speak, rap or sing?

The 3 groups had to learn the phrases either by repeating them as spoken phrases, by repeating them with a rhythm or by singing the phrases.

When they were tested on recalling the phrases they had practised earlier, it was the singing group that scored the highest in 4 of the 5 tests.

In one test, the singing group performed twice as well as the speaking group. And the singing group were able to remember the phrases more accurately in the longer term.

Singing in another language allows you to develop your language skills without feeling you’re practising.

How can I or my child benefit from these findings?

Most of us – from babies and toddlers through to adults – enjoy singing. So if you want to use the power of song to improve your Spanish, French or Hungarian, here are a couple of tips:

Sing along to a song you like: this is the easiest way to get singing in another language and to improve your learning. You’ll better remember the language in the song, as well as working on your pronunciation as you sing!

In the age of the internet, of course, you have no excuse for not knowing where to find songs in other languages. The problem has changed, though – your job now is to find something you like among all the stuff you don’t.

(For a gentle song in Spanish for babies and small children – with clear singing and lyrics on the screen – Baby Listen’s version of Twinkle twinkle in Spanish is a great place to start.)

Keep going: singing once or twice isn’t enough! The more times you sing your new songs, the more reinforced the new connections forming in your brain will become.

Think of new brain connections like taking a new route through a forest: pass that way only a couple of times and any plants you’ve disturbed will soon grow back. But imagine that you follow your new route every day – you’ll soon see the beginnings of a noticeable path.

So keep your new songs to hand and when you’re doing something else – cooking, say – you can sing along.

As a prompt, you could even write the lyrics on a sticky note and put it on the fridge door…

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Baby Listen Spanish 0+ is a beautiful album of songs, rhymes and speaking designed to introduce babies and toddlers to the sounds and rhythms of this wonderful language. A great way into Spanish through its sounds (echoing the way we all learn our first language), with many songs parents and their children will want to sing along to.

Baby Listen Spanish 0+ is a melodic and inspiring gift for baby showers, parents-to-be, new babies and baby’s first birthday. Now delivering worldwide and on digital download.

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