4 Steps to Learn Spanish with Music: The Ultimate Guide with Chunking

This article is about my favorite topic: la música (music).

I am going to teach you how you can learn Spanish with music… and believe me, nowadays this is a technique I also use to keep practicing French and Portuguese. Yes, mis amigos, I also speak these two languages and is there any better way to learn it than by singing? (Please don’t make me sing).

I advise you to read until the end so I can share some of my favorite playlists in Spanish, according to the music genre you prefer.

Learn Spanish with Music with this technique

Listening to music in Spanish will help you improve your Spanish pronunciation and listening skills. Sometimes lyrics may be difficult to understand, of course… but it’s a very fun and low-key activity that doesn’t require a lot of effort and you can dance, sing and practice Spanish at the same time.

I personally love listening to Portuguese music, and I use the same steps I will share with you. They helped me a lot to sing correctly and, of course, fill in the “missing pieces” to stop mumbling parts I didn’t understand before. This keeps me motivated. And you know that motivation is very important when learning languages.

So now, the first thing you must do: Choose a song from your favorite genre. Make sure it is a song you actually love to listen to, because with this technique you will be hearing it A LOT!

Step 1: Listen to the song several times

The number of times depends on you.

Your goal is to see how many words, phrases or chunks you can get just from listening to the song.

Once you have reached your limit and don’t understand anything new while listening to it again, move to Step 2.

Step 2: Find the lyrics

You may do this by going on Google to find the lyrics. There are a lot of online resources where you can find la letra (the lyrics) and translations. 

Once you have found them, what you want to do is read the lyrics while listening to the song, so now las palabras que hacían falta (the “missing words”) are evident and you know what you haven’t been able to understand before.

Step 3: Be aware of the words you don’t understand

You may look up the words and phrases that you are not familiar with, as this will help you increase your knowledge of vocabulary and chunks. 

You might still not understand a sentence after translating the words, but no te preocupes (don’t worry), that is why you are learning Spanish with chunks instead of word lists. 

So, how does that work?

Well, what I want you to do is listen to the song and look for word combinations you hear the singer use and where you think “oh, so THAT’s how you say that in Spanish!”… then, that is a chunk!

For example: 

• Por un beso de la flaca yo daría lo que fuera (For a kiss of the skinny I would give anything)
• Valió la pena, lo que era necesario para estar contigo, amor (It was worthy, whatever it was necessary for being with you, my love)

Now, let’s put them together in a sentence you may actually use:

• Yo daría lo que fuera para estar contigo, amor (I would give  anything to be with you, my love).

We call these word combinations “chunks”. And once you’ve heard them in the song… you can memorize them and start using them yourself… and you’ll sound just like Marc Anthony or Maluma when you’re speaking Spanish!

This chunking method will help you be fluent in Spanish much faster. If you’d like to discover more, register for our Free Spanish Training, where we give you WAY more examples! 

✔️ Cheat Sheet with 54 essential Spanish Chunks you’ll hear and use yourself in ANY Spanish conversation (and example sentences). Taken from our YouTube Teacher’s most popular videos!

✔️ 2 Bonus Cheat Sheets with Travel Chunks and Dating/Relationship Chunks

✔️ A Spanish Chunking Tutorial showing you the 1 technique that’ll help you make 100% of the Spanish from our videos roll off the tongue in just 5 minutes a day (you’re probably only using 50% of our lessons’ potential right now…)

Yes! Send me my FREE Spanish Chunking Kit

Shhh! Ahora ya sabes uno de nuestros secretos (You now know one of our secrets).

Step 4: Now we listen again (and sing… if you want)

This is my favorite part! You can stop making up words and you can actually start singing the proper lyrics and the coolest part of all: ENTIENDES LA CANCIÓN (You understand the song). 

And that feeling is amazing…

So, which song do you want to start this method with?

Anyway, mis amigos, as I promised at the beginning of this lesson, in the description I will leave the links to the playlists I like to listen to (not to improve my Spanish), but because me encanta la música en español (I love music in Spanish).

Here are my favorite playlists:

• Rock en español para los amantes del Rock clásico y alternativo (For classic and alternative Rock lovers)
• Salsa Nation para los bailadores como yo, y que prefieren la Salsa (For the dancers like me and for those who prefer Salsa)
• And if you prefer pop songs and more contemporary ones try Sólo Pop (Just Pop)

You can also check out all the music that we recommend for Spanish learners, so you can learn Spanish with Spotify.

There are a LOT of music genres and many other playlists, like rancheras, música tradicional mexicana, tríos, boleros, mariachi, so you just need to choose one to start applying this method and start improving your Spanish… with music of course.

I really hope you have enjoyed today’s piece and remember ¡Ay! ¡Ay! ¡ay! ¡Canta y no llores!

Enjoy your singing!