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Saturday, September 17, 2011 (read 1325 times)
Practise your Spanish the musical way!
by Matthew LeakeIt seems fitting that as the Spanish football team lifted the World Cup for the first time ever in 2010, the song that accompanied them was the famous “Waka, Waka” anthem by Columbian singer Shakira. Was it meant to be? Did a Spanish song spur the team on to win the World Cup? Or perhaps it was the passionate love affair between Gerard Piqué and Shakira that inspired victory...
The fact is that Latin American musicians are now famous all over world. Names like Jennifer López, Shakira, Enrique Iglesias, Marc Anthony, Alejandro Sanz, Don Omar, Gloria Trevi, among many others fill the charts everywhere you go.
The "Top Latino Chart" from the past week looks like this:
| POSITION | SONG | ARTIST | RECORD LABEL |
| 1 | Give me everything | Pitbull Feat. Ne Yo | SONY MUSIC |
| 2 | Party rock anthem | LMFAO | UNIVERSAL |
| 3 | Rabiosa | Shakira | SONY MUSIC |
| 4 | Last friday night | Katy Perry | EMI |
| 5 | Amor clandestino | Maná | WARNER |
| 6 | Vestida de azúcar | Gloria Trevi | UNIVERSAL |
| 7 | Taboo | Don Omar | UNIVERSAL |
| 8 | On the floor | Jennifer Lopez Feat. Pitbull | SONY MUSIC |
| 9 | Peligro | Reik | SONY MUSIC |
| 10 | I wanna go | Britney Spears | SONY MUSI |
We can see here that of the top ten songs, four of them are in Spanish. Listening to these is a guaranteed way to help you pactise and improve your Spanish.
As a Spanish teacher I have some recommendations that you can find on Youtube that will help you with certain aspects of the Spanish language...
| SONG | ARTIST | TOPIC |
| A Dios le pido | Juanes | Subjuntive |
| La Bilirrubina | Juan Luis Guerra | Past tense + medical vocabulary |
| 20 de abril | Celtas Cortos | Present tense + informal letters |
| Antología | Shakira | Past tenses |
| Ójala que llueva café | Juan Luis Guerra | Subjuntive |
| Pedro Navaja | Rubén Blades | Descriptions in past and present tenses |
| No me ames | Jennifer López y Marc Anthony | Present tense |
| Me gustas tú | Manu Chao | “Gustar” type verbs |
| Mis ojos | Maná | Present + present continuous |
| Me voy | Julieta Venegas | Present tense |
Enjoy! I hope these lead you to many more examples so you can keep practising your Spanish with music.
Keywords: spanish music, spanish songs, learn spanish, spanish artists, spanish singers, latin american singers, latin american artists, spanish teaching, teaching spanish grammar, spanish grammar, latin american music
Comments
Wow, I certainly agree one hundred percent with this post. I love learning languages through music! And I also had the thought of using "A Dios le pido" to teach the subjunctive. Your tables are very helpful and I will be sure to bookmark this post and use it in the future - I begin student teaching next year. Music is catchy, fun, and easy to remember, so hopefully it'll get our students to remember grammar and also to use the right accent when speaking!