今回は英文コラムです。文意をつかみましょう。

岐阜聖徳学園大学外国語学部専任講師　マギー グレン

　Do you love singing and listening to music? Did you know that listening to English music is a great way to learn English? In this short article, I will tell you about how to learn English with songs.

　First, find music that you enjoy listening to that is popular. If you are going to talk with people from other countries, it is a good idea to know what kind of music they are interested in. The good news is that you can do this easily by visiting video-sharing sites such as YouTube and Vimeo. When you find a song you like, search for the [song name] and add [lyric video] after it. Then, as you listen to the song, you can sing along with the words. Yes, it is just like karaoke.

　Be careful to choose songs that have words that are not too hard for you to understand. If you are a beginner at English, then try learning children's songs. There are also many Disney songs that are good for beginners. Pop music is a good place to start learning English songs. If you find a word or phrase that you cannot understand then try the website DeepL and translate the words from English to Japanese. There are also many websites where you can read English song lyrics. Just Google "song lyrics".

　Next, you want to review the words and phrases you learn. You can do this with pen or paper, or use an online flashcard app such as Anki, Memrise, or Quizlet. Flashcards apps are a great way to get better at singing songs and improving your English vocabulary and pronunciation. And, as you start to master the song you can take the next step--sing the song without the lyrics. You will find that as you do this you will become more confident in speaking English with other people.

　Finally, learn more and more songs. Share them with your friends. Get together and sing together. You will be surprised at how much fun this is.(2021.3.7岐阜新聞掲載）