Subtitles section Play video
-
Aww yeah, I'm Ethan you're a life English fluency coach and today we're talking
-
about one of my favorite topics.
-
So we are going to show you ten great songs
-
for you to learn English with and not only this, we will also teach you some
-
great vocabulary, expressions and pronunciation with the lyrics and
-
finally we will give you some tips so that you can continue learning with
-
songs on your own.
-
And we'll jump into all that in just a second but first I
-
want to let you know that if you're new here every week we make you fun lessons
-
just like this one so that you can understand fast speaking natives
-
without getting lost, without missing the jokes and without subtitles.
-
Like Nadana who says that thanks to our lessons he can now speak
-
English fluently, so if you want it too all you have to do is hit that subscribe
-
button and the bell down below so you don't miss any of our new lessons.
-
Number 10: Your Song by Elton John.
-
Now, the reason that I chose this one is because I recently watched the movie
-
Rocketman which is all about Elton John's rise to fame now this was a super
-
fascinating movie and I recommend it to you I had no idea that Elton John had
-
such a difficult life before I watch this.
-
Now he is still considered one of
-
the top grossing artists of all time which means that he has sold more albums
-
than almost any other artist alive.
-
Now, if you're not so much into older music
-
then you could check out the version that Ellie Goulding did of this song.
-
But let's take a look at some of the expressions that you'll learn in Your Song.
-
Number 9: Paradise, by Coldplay
-
Now this is probably my favorite song by this iconic band, let's take a look at
-
some of the great expressions that you can learn in this song
-
Now this is a great song to listen to if you're feeling a
-
bit down, that is a little bit sad because it really lifts your spirit,
-
it breaks you out of your reality and get you dreaming of what could be.
-
Now if you like alternative bands like Coldplay then I highly recommend that you check
-
out Vera Blue from Australia who is another alternative artist I discovered
-
this year and absolutely loved.
-
Number 8: New Rules, by Dua Lipa
-
Dua Lipa is an up-and-coming artist who has a really unique sound, now what this means is that
-
she is just starting to be recognised for her talent and becoming popular.
-
Now we chose this song because it is filled with really fantastic connected speech
-
to practice your native pronunciation and understand that is better.
-
Now if you like New Rules another song that I loved by her is Don't Start Now.
-
Hey would you like to understand natives no matter how fast we speak?
-
and wouldn't you like to be able
-
to watch your favorite movies and series without the subtitles?
-
Well our Fluent with Friends course can help you a ton in reaching your goal and
-
having a lot of fun along the way.
-
You will learn alongside the first two
-
seasons of the TV series Friends, which various academic studies show is the
-
best series out there for learning English.
-
And you get PDF power lessons
-
vocabulary memorization software, access to our fluency circle global community
-
and so much more!
-
And you can try for free right now with our three-part Masterclass.
-
What are you waiting for?
-
Just click up here or down in the description
-
below to learn more and sign up.
-
We look forward to meeting you inside.
-
Number 7: A Hard Rain Is Gonna Fall, by Bob Dylan.
-
Now Bob Dylan is famous for writing ballads, that is a song that kind of
-
tells a story, it's like poetry.
-
Now this makes them really great for learning
-
expressions and figurative language as well as how to tell a story in English.
-
You might kind of compare him to some similar modern artists like Taylor Swift.
-
Now he wrote this song in the 60s about all the depressing things that he was
-
seeing happening in the news.
-
However you can probably find a lot of relevance in
-
the lyrics of the song even today.
-
Now I actually discovered the song
-
because one of my favorite folk artists, Laura Marling, did a really amazing cover of it.
-
Now if you like Bob Dylan and his tremendous lyrics then I highly
-
recommend you check out some similarly famous artists like Joni Mitchell,
-
John Denver and of course Laura Marling who I mentioned before.
-
Number 6: Were Is The Love, by The Black Eyed Peas.
-
Now we're moving to a very different genre but not such a different topic.
-
This song is really an anthem for global citizens.
-
Now an anthem is a song that
-
represents a group or cause for example your country probably has a national anthem.
-
Now I like this song because it talks about big global problems and asks
-
us if we can love our fellow brothers and sisters of the human race.
-
It's also great to learn a little bit about American culture as it makes many
-
different references as well as to learn some great expressions.
-
Number 5: I Don't Trust Myself, by John Mayer.
-
So now we're moving on to one of
-
my favourite artists of all time. I've seen John Mayer many times in concert
-
and he is an incredibly talented musician, in fact he's probably one of the best
-
guitarists alive.
-
Now this song that we've chosen is one of the ones that made me
-
really fall in love with his music and it's great for you as an English learner
-
because you can practice connected speech and improve your native
-
pronunciation. Let's take a look.
-
So, one of the reasons I chose John Mayer is because he has done so many different genres
-
throughout his career.
-
Earlier he did a lot of pop, but then he kinda transitioned more into music
-
that he was more passionate about like blues, rock and folk.
-
So I'm sure almost any of you can find something
-
that you like by him.
-
And another artist that I
-
like for the same reason is Sia, earlier in her career she actually started with
-
more blues but nowadays you'll find her doing more motivational pop which is
-
really great if you're working out.
-
Number 4: Rain On Me, by Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande.
-
Now moving on to another artist who has experimented with a lot of different genres: Lady Gaga.
-
but most of us might think of her more
-
as being like the Queen of Pop.
-
Now one of the things that I really love about
-
Lady Gaga is that although she is very unique she's not just a superficial pop star,
-
she is also a big proponent of the value of kindness and she's spoken a lot
-
about this even with the Dalai Lama let's take a look.
-
So, other than bein a humanitarian, she's also an extremely talented lyrics writer.
-
In fact a lot of you probably saw her recent film
-
A Star Is Born, which has some really powerful
-
music in it but we've chosen one that is just super fun from her new album and we
-
actually did a recent lesson on it and we're going to look at a few expressions
-
taken from that lesson and then if you want to continue learning with Lady Gaga
-
I recommend that you check out the full lesson after finishing this video.
-
Number 3: Don't Stop Me Now, by Queen
-
Now did you know Lady Gaga's name actually comes from a song from our next
-
band, Queen? Well I was absolutely obsessed with Queen in high school and
-
it's so fantastic seeing that the band had a renaissance since the film
-
Bohemian Rhapsody came out.
-
Now we actually did a lesson teaching English
-
with three of their songs which you can check out after finishing this lesson
-
but right now we'll just look at an excerpt of it to give you a taste.
-
So if you liked that then I also highly recommend
-
that you check out the movie Bohemian Rhapsody because
-
this is really great to learn a little bit about British culture as well as
-
learn more about the history of the band
-
Number 2: When The Party's Over, by Billie Eilish.
-
So similar to Bob Dylan, Billie Eilish's lyrics
-
usually tell some sort of a story, which makes it really great to pick up some
-
different vocabulary.
-
However with When The Party's Over we're going to
-
actually take a look at some of the connected speech.
-
Now, this song like many of Billie Eilish's
-
is pretty slow and it's not too melodic which makes it perfect to sing along
-
with to improve your pronunciation and we made a full lesson with another song
-
of her no time to die which I highly recommend you check out later if you're
-
a fan of Billy Eilish's.
-
Number 1: Lose Yourself, by Eminem.
-
Now personally I'm not a huge fan of rap but it is one of the best types of
-
music to learn English because it very closely mimics the rhythm of how natives speak.
-
In fact this is one of the songs that I used to use to teach connected
-
speech to my students, if you practice it over and over again your native
-
pronunciation will improve a lot, I promise.
-
In fact let's actually take a look from a clip of a lesson that we made using
-
the song so that you can practice rapping along with Eminem and improve
-
your English pronunciation.
-
All right, so if you choose any of those songs really you're going to have a lot
-
of fun and you'll learn a lot with them,
-
and English learners ask all the time
-
what are the best songs to be learning English with?
-
Now really you should be
-
learning with whatever songs you love you can definitely go learn with rap and
-
it will be very effective but if you hate rap then you're not going to enjoy
-
the process, what's more important is that you're cultivating curiosity that
-
you're not just listening to a song you like but you're actually taking the time
-
to go look up the lyrics and really understand what they mean and then sing along.
-
Sing along is so important because it really builds those muscles of
-
articulation it doesn't matter if you're a great singer just have fun doing it on
-
your own and as promised I have a few quick tips for you so the first one is
-
to check out Genius lyrics when you're looking up the lyrics at any song
-
because there you can find explanations of what the lyrics mean now a lot of
-
times just by looking up the words and lyrics you're not going to fully
-
understand because there's different references to culture, there's different
-
references to something from the person's personal life or they are being
-
creative with the language and it's not exactly what it seems to mean so this
-
can really help you to go beyond just the language to understand the deeper meaning.
-
The next is to use a website called LyricsTraining now this is really
-
fantastic to build your vocabulary and your comprehension with any song now
-
basically what they do is it's kind of like a game they take out some of the
-
vocabulary and you basically have to type it in while you're listening to the
-
song playing this is a really great challenge and it's a lot of fun it's
-
very addictive go check it out.
-
Now the final tip is in Spotify or whatever
-
platform that you use to listen to music create a playlist of the songs that
-
you're using to learn English because then you can listen on the go when
-
you're in your car when you're in the shower when you're cooking dinner and
-
you can actually be singing along and practicing any time of day.
-
And finally if you want a method to learn English with your favorite songs then I highly
-
recommend that you check out this lesson that we made.
-
Now if you've liked the
-
songs that have suggested to you today and you want to check out more of the
-
music that I'm listening to then you can check out what I'm currently listening
-
to on Spotify I will post a link to that playlist down in the description below
-
and I want to know what songs did I miss, what are your favorite songs learn English with?
-
Share them with other English learners
-
by writing them down in the comments below now thanks so much for joining me
-
today I hope you've had a lot of fun and then you've gotten some new songs to
-
practice your English with and now it's time to go beyond the classroom and live
-
your English, awww yeah!