Why Do We Love to Listen to Songs in Foreign Languages?

French and Italian music are really something special to listen to. The way the words are pronounced and get mixed together is a true pleasure for me to listen to. The main reason why some people like to listen to music in a foreign language is mainly because you get to focus more on the sounds of the instruments and the voice of the artist. When you listen to music in a language you understand you focus a lot on the lyrics of the song and most of the times forget about the instruments. You seldom ignore the voice of the artist but it can happen when you focus too much on the lyrics and forget about who are singing.

The fact that you don’t understand the lyrics doesn’t make the experience necessarily frustrating. Your brain goes into passive mode because you don’t need to decipher the lyrics of the song, you only listen to the music passively. This is why it is easier to study while listening to music in a foreign language than it is when you understand the lyrics. This is when you show more appreciation for the voice of the artist in the first place and the combination of the musical instruments in the second place. During this process you detect sounds you would not normally detect when you were listening to music in your own mother tongue. You may also develop a bigger interest in the artist’s music because you are now listening at the core of the music.

Listening to music in foreign languages also gives you a break from your own cultural music. It is sometimes very interesting when you get exposed to music from other cultures and in the end you find that there are many similarities between that music and music from your own culture. Music is a universal language that can’t be restricted by language or culture. True music is sincerely and speaks from the artist’s soul. Lara Fabian once said “I don’t believe that a language will limit an emotion, so there is not a specific language to say something that comes from the heart. You can say something from the heart in Japanese, Indian, Italian, English, it doesn’t matter, as long as it is sincere. I truly believe specific feelings, true feelings have no limitations or no barriers when it comes to honesty.”