Due to the rising popularity of Japanese media such as Jpop, manga and anime, it seems more common than ever that people are entering the realm of language learning with the expectation that becoming fluent in Japanese is only a matter of watching their favorite television shows a couple times. Unfortunately, they couldn’t be more wrong. Languages are HUGE, and just idly watching something will never get you any further than recognizing a word or two here and there. If you actually want to make real progress, you’re going to have to work for it- which is why most people who start due to their love for Japan’s media tend to give up on it pretty quickly. Yeah, sorry- It’s a little discouraging.
Luckily, there ARE ways to study that can be both fun and efficient- given that they’re only used as a supplements. My favorite is studying through music by going through the lyrics and learning all of the words and grammar I didn’t already know with a SRS application. After that, I just read through the lyrics as the song plays, or maybe even sing along if I’m feeling up to it. The only problem with this method is that it can be pretty slow and painful if you can’t already read at least a majority of the lyrics. If you’re a beginner, you should probably stay away from this sort of method for a while. Like. A really long time. I wouldn’t even recommend this until you’ve at least mastered the JLPT N4, (or maybe the N5 if you’re a bit of a masochist) If you’re still feeling pretty confident, then it’s your lucky day. Here’s a list of some of the songs that I’ve looked at, all categorized by difficulty:
Lvl 1: Hard
These songs are often quite repetitive. Because of this, there’s a lot less content overall to learn, and whatever you do need to learn, you’ll probably hear about a dozen times. On top of that, they’re also usually pretty slow, so it should be a bit easier to follow. Some examples include:
• Aimer:今日から思い出 • 世界の終わり: RPG • 防弾少年団：血、汗、涙
Lvl 2: Harder
Songs in this level are probably a little faster, and a bit less repetitive than level one. What makes it a level two instead of a level three is that a lot of the words get recycled throughout the song, so it’s not necessarily repetitive, but it’s not all over the place in terms of vocab either.
• 防弾少年団：Spring Day • KOTORI: 19歳 • おいしくるメロンパン：色水 • おいしくるメロンパン：シュガーサーフ • Saucy Dog：煙
Lvl 3: W h y
Level three songs are for the people who realllyyy like flashcards. A lot. While the chorus may still be somewhat repetitive, the verses of these songs talk about a lot of different things- meaning there’s a much larger pool of vocab you’ll have to learn to master it. These songs can also sometimes be pretty fast, so the lyrics may be hard to follow. (Not always!)
• RADWIMPS: いいんですか • Saucy Dog: いつか
Obviously, I’ve only defined these from the perspective of someone whose just starting out with this method, and not as someone whose been doing this for a while. As you expand your database, the words you find will only become more and more recognizable until eventually you’ll find songs without a single word that you don’t already know. That’s whats so great about this method; If you started on a level one song where it’s only a little difficult, a year later a level three song may be just as easy as that level one song was to you back then. Basically the more you learn now, the less you’ll have to learn in the future. It’s like collecting pokemon- except instead of pokemon, they’re words. Okay.. I should probably go to bed.
(I’ll continue to update the list as I look at more songs)