I have a business idea

[Sethomas]

Granted, I won't be able to commit time to this for years to come, but I feel like I should write it down and share so that I might have some compulsion to actually do it. I learned a great deal of German by going on a summer vacation one year with my family and just listening to Rammstein on repeat. Years later I augmented my vocabulary with Die Toten Hosen, and by now while my German vocabulary is pretty humble my command of the grammar is really strong considering how little formal education I've had in it. I did the same thing with a French band I discovered, and although I haven't invested much time in them I still find that they really help my vocabulary. I recently bought some cds by an Italian punk band because I want to learn Italian (and I'm going to be studying Catalan in the Fall, so any Romance vocabulary helps). I've been listening to them constantly for like the past ten days, and I'm amazed at how the words just stick in my mind.

So, I'm thinking a good business model for THE ULTIMATE LANGUAGE LEARNING EXPERIENCE would be to get rights for different foreign artists and make compilation cds of good examplar songs and publish them alongside a book with split-column bilingual lyrics and extensive grammatical/vocabulary notes to accompany each song.

I don't think it's any secret that music helps build foreign vocabulary like nothing else, I've had two French teachers that were huge on it. I'm just surprised that I've never seen it strongly marketed. Yeah, there's Berlitz cds that sell like wildfire, but they suck. If I'm going to work in the humanities, I may as well find some way to feed myself. What do you guys think?

[J. Tithonus Pednaud]

That's a very sound idea. When I used to teach in Asia, at least 70% of classes involved students singing along to popular western pop songs (n'sync, Spears, etc - this was awhile back). Then we would break down the song ling by line and translate or explain the meaning.

Perhaps make covers of English songs translated into foreign language.

[DuFresne]

It does sound like a good idea, but I could see people plausibly calling it just another stupid educational fad and not buying into it as much as it would deserve. Marketing inteligently to prevent this would be key, if it's even possible.

[Supafly345]

He should pray that it becomes a fad. Then he could not worry about money for the first 5 or so years of his professional working life while he finds a solid career.

[Sacks]

Dude, hook me up with some Italian punk rock.

[Sethomas]

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=succomarcio

They only have two real videos up, which happen to be two of their better songs. They're like a bubblegum version of Green Day, whom they cite as their biggest influence.

[kahljorn]

Greenday isn't punk :O

[Blue Fox]

that sounds like a really good idea.

I've tried it with japanese but it's hard for me to seperate and remember the words most of the time. I usually just end up making words up to fill the spaces.

that's why anyone listening to me singing numa numa by o-zone laughs.