I have yet to post on one of the most effective, for me, forms of comprehensible input—children’s songs on Youtube. I did touch on this when I explained how I taught myself to read Ukrainian, but now I’m going to talk about comprehensibility and music.

When music is discussed as a language learning tool, I have rarely seen anyone specifically discuss children’s songs. They’re catchy, repetitive, easy to learn, and the language is simple. They’re also often intended as educational tools, so they cover a wide variety of daily topics. In other words, perfect for beginners.

Youtube is a goldmine of children’s songs with accompanying animation, which provides context, so even if you don’t know any of the words, it can be very comprehensible. (Depending on the song and the channel.) I recommend translating “children’s songs” and variations thereof into your target language and then pasting into Youtube search.

I tend to watch through the videos for context, then download the audio and add it to my iPod. I only really listen to music while doing housework, and for motivational purposes, mix the target language music in the same playlist as whatever English songs I’m most into at the moment.

I have built up a collection of children’s songs in French, which I’ve acquired quite a bit of vocabulary from, and I’m working on a Ukrainian collection. I do have a few pop songs in both languages, which aren’t as comprehensible, though with most I did look up a translation of the lyrics to gauge what it was about before I added them to my iPod.