How to use songs to learn English

Hello. My name is Emma, and I am very excited today because I am going to

teach you how you can make grammar fun. That's right, grammar can be fun. You

might not believe me, because I know grammar, English grammar specifically

makes a lot of students feel like this. Okay? A lot of students, when they learn

English grammar, like the present perfect, the past continuous, the future

simple — they feel very stressed. And they feel very bad because grammar can

sometimes be boring, and it can sometimes be difficult. Okay? So, if

this is how you feel about grammar, if you find it really hard; or maybe you

love grammar, but you want to find another way to learn grammar — this

video is for you.

So, my tip today is that one of the best ways to learn grammar is by using songs

and music. And why is this? Well, I want you to think: When you listen to music,

a lot of the times you probably feel like this. Music makes people feel very

happy. So, while grammar might make you feel bored, or you might find it

difficult, music can make you feel happy. So, by combining or putting

together music and grammar, you can have a fun learning experience. Okay? So, let

me first talk about why it's good to use music when you're learning grammar, and

then I'm going to talk about how you can use music to learn grammar, and some of

my favorite songs you can use... you can use to do this. Okay? So, let's get

started.

So, when we use a song, songs have a lot of great grammar points in them. Okay?

If you've ever heard the Barenaked Ladies, they have a great song that

we're talking about... we'll talk a little bit about later, called: "If I

Had a Million Dollars". This song is wonderful for learning the second

conditional. Okay? We have songs that are great for learning the present

perfect, songs that are great for learning the past tense, and I'm going

to talk about these songs and how you can use them. But if you think about it:

Why can these songs really help you learn grammar? Well, first of all, when

you use music — okay? — and you sing a song, when you sing, you're actually

using a different part of your brain than you do when you speak. And by using

a different part of your brain, it can actually help you remember things, such

as grammar, or such as different words in the song. So, using singing can help

you remember.

If you think about stress, a lot of the times when you're in English class and

learning grammar, you might feel stressed. Stress is bad for learning.

Music can help you feel less stress, so it can lower stress. And by doing this,

music can actually increase learning; it can make learning go up. Okay? You can

learn a lot more when you're not stressed. Music has a lot of repetition.

If you think about songs, you often hear the same lyrics again and again in the

chorus. This repetition is good for memory. There are a lot of fun

activities you can do when you're using music, and you can learn a lot about a

person's culture from the music. Okay? So, I'm going to share a little bit of

Canadian culture with you today, when I talk about some Canadian bands you can

use when you're learning grammar. And finally, I have a lot of favorite songs

I love to use with my classes for grammar, so I'm going to share these

with you. So, these are some of the reasons why music can be so helpful with

learning grammar. Now, let's learn how we can use music.

Okay. So, the first step is thinking about: What kind of grammar do you want

to practice? Okay? So, maybe in your English class, you're learning about the

second conditional; maybe you... you're not in English class, but you just want

to learn grammar on your own. And that's okay, too. So, I'm just going to give

you some examples. And there's many other examples, but some examples of

songs you can use when you're learning these different points of grammar. Okay?

So, the first example I'm going to give is if you're learning what we call the

simple present — okay? — so that's sentences like: "I run", "I eat", you

know, "I eat a hamburger", "I read a book". These are all examples of the

simple present tense, and so that has to do with what's happening now. So, two

great songs for practicing the simple present tense. The first one is a really

sad song by Marianne Faithfull and it's called: "As Tears Go By". Okay? So, what

you can do is if you want to practice using any of these songs, you can go on

YouTube and listen to them, and just type in: "As Tears Go By". You can also

check out Jewel's song: "You Were Meant For Me". This is another great song you

can use when practicing grammar from the simple present tense. Okay?

In terms of simple past tense, so simple past is when you have an "ed" ending.

So, for example: "I looked at the store", "I bought some ice cream",

"Yesterday, I did my homework". These are all examples of the simple past

tense. Okay? So, sometimes we have regular simple past, which is "ed"

endings, and sometimes we have irregular endings. Now, if this is confusing to

you, that's okay. The main point is: If you're talking about the past, you can

listen to these songs for grammar points. We have: "Yesterday" by The

Beatles, which is a great song, when you're learning about the past tense,

because The Beatles tend to sing very slow, so you can really hear the words,

and you can really hear the grammar in this song. And it's about yesterday, so

you know it's about the past. There's also another song by Andy Williams,

called "Yesterday When I Was Young". Or at least Andy Williams sings it; there's

different versions. But "Yesterday When I Was Young" is another great song when

you're looking at the past tense. If you're looking at the past continuous

sense-... tense, sorry — Last Kiss by Pearl Jam is a wonderful song for this

one.

In terms of the simple future, so this is when we use the word "will" and we

talk about the future, you can use The Shirelles or Amy Winehouse: "Will You

Still Love Me Tomorrow?" That's an excellent song for this tense. Or, if

you like The Beatles, you can also use: "When I'm 64", where they talk about

what they're going to do in the future when they're 64. If you'd like, you

know, maybe other types of music, The Proclaimers has a great song called: "I

Will Walk 500 Miles". So, you can check that song out, too; that has a lot of

this tense in it.

For students looking to learn more about the present perfect, and this is always

a really challenging tense for students. This is when we say things like: "have

you ever", "I have never", "I have eaten an apple before". Okay? So, this tense

is really challenging. Some great songs for it are: "Have You Ever Seen the

Rain". Okay? So, there's different versions of this song; you can listen to

the one from Rod Stewart, or any other musician who sings this. But "Have You

Ever Seen the Rain" is great for this tense. You can also check out U2's: "I

Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For". This is another great song for the

present perfect. If you're learning the second conditional, I'm going to talk

about a song to help you with that in a moment. But some other songs are: "If I

Were A Boy" by Beyonce, "If I Fell in Love" by The Beatles. And finally, if

you're learning "should have", like, you know, something that you regret, you can

use Bruno Mars: "I Should Have Bought You Flowers". Okay? So, these are just

some examples of great songs you can use to help you learn English grammar. Now

I'm going to show you how you can use a specific song to kind of get an idea of

activities you can do.

Okay. So, a song that I really like using when teaching the second

conditional... And the second conditional is: "If I had a million

dollars, I'd be rich" — that's an example. So, a song I really like using

for teaching the second conditional is a song by a Canadian band. And I'm

Canadian, so I like Canadian bands. And this Canadian band is called the

Barenaked Ladies. Okay? So, the song they sing is called: "If I Had a Million

Dollars". Okay? You can YouTube it and find the song, and, you know, listen to

it. And in the comments, you can tell me what you think of the song. Okay? Some

students love it. Some students, maybe they're not as big of a fan of it, but

it's a great song for learning the second conditional. Okay? So, how can

you use this song if you want to learn grammar? Well, let's look at some ideas

for activities you can do. So, the first thing I would suggest is just listen to

the song. Listen to it a couple of times. And, you know, think about the

song, listen for the grammar. Is there anything you can hear about the second

conditional? Maybe before listening to the song, you can even look up what the

second conditional is, if you don't know that grammar yet. Okay? And then you can

just listen to it.

The next thing you can do is look for the lyrics — you can Google the lyrics

of the song or find them on YouTube — and try to find examples of the grammar.

So, in this case, you can look for examples of the second conditional. So,

I've just written out some lyrics from the song here. There's a lot of examples

of the second conditional in the song, but for example: "If I had a million

dollars, I'd buy you a house. If I had a million dollars, I'd buy furniture for

your house, like a chesterfield or an ottoman." So, these are lyrics from the

song. And so, I'd look at them and I try to think: "Okay, where is the second

conditional in this song?" Well, when we talk about the second conditional, we're

talking about a sentence that has the word "if" in it — okay? — so just

looking: "Oh, here's 'If', here's 'If'." Okay? So, two examples. It also has

"would" in it or the contraction of "would", which is, in this case: "I

would" becomes "I'd". So, this is an example of part of the second

conditional. Okay? And then I can look at, you know, what goes with "If"? What

tense? So, in this case: "If I had a million dollars, I'd buy you a house. If

I had a million dollars, I'd buy furniture for your house." So, look for

the grammar, look for examples of it. And if this is hard for you, maybe it's

because you haven't learned the second conditional yet. So, I recommend

studying the second conditional first, and then using this as a guide.

So, after you find examples of the grammatical tense you want to study,

then you can think about: "Why are they using this tense? Okay? Why are they

using the second conditional here? What does it mean?" In this case, when you

see: "If I had", and "I'd buy", what they're saying... using the second

conditional is they're talking about a imaginary situation. So, something

that's not true; the singer does not have a million dollars, but he's

imagining: "What would life be like if I did have a...? Or if I did have a

million dollars? And what would I do?" Okay? So, we use the second conditional

to talk about an imaginary situation; something that's not true. But we want

to imagine what we would do if it was true. So, in this case, this person, if

they had a million dollars — they do not have a million dollars, but if they did

— they would buy you a house. Okay? And if they had a million dollars, they

would also buy furniture for your house. So, they're using this to show they

don't have a million, but if they did, this is what they would do.

The next thing you can do after you think about why they use this tense is

you can actually sing the song. Okay? So, you can find a copy of the lyrics

and sing along. Okay? Sing it until you remember the words. And then after you

do that, you can test yourself. Okay? Cover up some words in the song. So, for

example, when I sing it: "If I..." and I cover this up, so I can't read it, I

have to try to remember: "What was the word they used there? What verb tense

was it in?" Okay? "If I... Oh, okay. If I had", so you can test yourself and

practice singing the song by covering up the verbs and seeing if you can remember

the verbs they use and the tenses they use. Okay?

The final thing you can do as a fun activity is you can actually make your

own lyrics with the grammar you're interested in. So, if you're practicing

the second conditional, you can change this: "If I had a million dollars",

maybe you can change it to: "If I had a dog". Okay? "If I had a dog, I'd..."

What's something I can say about if I had a dog? Maybe I'd walk it. So, you

can change the lyrics to maybe something that you might say in everyday life. And

this can help you practice using the second conditional. So, change the

lyrics and sing your own lyrics to the song, and see how that goes. Okay? So,

these are just some ways you can use music when learning grammar, and there's

many other ways to use it; these are just some suggestions.

I hope you check out the songs I recommended today. And I also hope that

you check out or you write in our comment section songs you use when

you're using... when you're learning grammar. Maybe people who watch can

share some ideas they have about using music when learning different grammar

points. Okay? I'd also like to invite you to check out our website at

www.engvid.com. There, you can do a quiz to practice what you've learned in this

video. You can also subscribe to my channel. I have a lot of different

resources on grammar, as well as vocabulary, slang, business English,

writing, and a whole bunch of other resources. So, check that out. Until

next time, take care and thanks for watching.