What Are They Saying??

Listening to music you don't truly understand

I have had many of people ask me why I listen to music in different languages, if I don't know what they are saying.

I listen to music from all over the world. Music touches the soul, it allows you to see and understand not only others but yourself.

Every song has a story behind it, someone put time and love into it. I want to hear as many stories as possible. There is also a really interesting difference between music of different cultures. One could sound a lot more electronic while another is more rhythmic. While this is true for individual songs, it is interesting to see how a culture can influence music overall. While there are many genres within one culture of music, there is often a distinctive undertone that differs between one another besides just the language difference. Such as looking at Korean pop compared to German.

Songs are made to be enjoyed by everyone, the language difference just gets in the way. I choose to not let that stand in my way of finding music I enjoy.

The music I enjoy spans from Latin American pop, to German Rap, all the way around to South Korean indie music. There is an expanse of possibilities out there when it comes to music.

I began listening to different music when I was little, mainly because my older sister was always listening to Japanese music. That is where my interested spurred, I will say my focus was on anime theme songs for a while because that was all I knew as a kid. Thankfully I grew up and expanded my music tastes. It started with K-pop but then I slowly began to test the waters with other languages. I currently listen to music in Korean, Japanese, Tagalog, Chinese, Thai, Russian, Vietnamese, Hindi, German, French, Polish and Spanish. You can find numerous artists who perform with these languages on my Spotify. However, I do think that my most expansive collections of music are in Korean and Chinese. While music genres go beyond language barriers, the variations in the same genres between languages is fascinating. Pop music in Korea compared to that of Germany is quite different. K-pop is produced with more electronic bass while German pop follows more of a pop-rock style even to this day.

While I love language learning I am not sitting her trying to learn all of the languages of music that I listen too. It is not necessary for you to do that, you just have to be willing to listen with limited knowledge on what they are saying. I do not do this for every song that I enjoy but those that I have on constant repeat I will look up the translation so I can get a better sense of why I love the song. It has happened numerous times that a song I have fallen in love with in a different language was a message that I needed to hear, and I felt a connection to it even without understanding the words.

Don't let others opinions of you listening to international music make you apprehensive to explore different music. Of course, there are not a lot of people who don't understand or will make jokes but I understand that those people can influence what you want to explore.

SO, listen to music in whatever language you want to!! Explore and let me know if you have an questions or want to tell me about what you're listening to!