People are always saying that total immersion is the most effective way to learn a language. Of course it is. Even before we pop out as little sproglets we’re absorbing what we hear. Ok, we aren’t born quoting Shakespeare but it doesn’t take long before we start having a go at repeating those bizarre sounds we’re hearing that we’ve established hold some sort of meaning. So, of course, you take that baby and pop it into Spain, it won’t be long before their babbles start sounding un poco diferente.

However, as we get older and get a job, fall in love, make our own sproglets, buy a house and do all of the other things that are expected of us, we gain that rather ominous word: responsibilities. ARGH!!! It’s actually quite frustrating when people say you need total immersion to master a language. Especially when you have responsibilities. The majority of us can’t just up sticks and pop ourselves in Spain or France or wherever the language we’ve always wanted to learn is spoken. This is one of the biggest flaws of our modern attitude to language learning – this little myth that stop people from learning a language before they’ve even tried. And it is a myth! You don’t need to go there to practise! This is 2014. We’ve been gifted with the Internet, Skype, phones that play radio from around the world. You don’t even need to get out of bed in the morning to learn a language! I wouldn’t advise that though. You should probably tend to those responsibilities we were talking about.

So without further ado, here is…

The Lindsay Does Languages Guide To Finding New Music In A Foreign Language!

Step 1

Visit 8tracks.com and type the language you’re learning in the search bar. You can also add other tags. So if you’re a Pop Princess or a Rap God you can narrow down your searches. Pick a playlist, any playlist. Have a listen. “Ooo, I like this one!”

Once you’ve got yourself a playlist and a song or two stuck in your head, any of the following in any order will work a treat!

Step 2

Visit amazon.co.uk and type the name of your new favourite band in the search bar. Click one of the results. Scroll down to “Customers Who Viewed This Item Also Viewed”, hopefully there’ll be a couple of other new and similar bands just waiting there for you to discover them!

Step 3

Try searching for one of the bands on the iTunes Store. Similar to Amazon, you’ll get a list of things other people also bought, as well as Genius recommendations and playlists if you download something. (But you probably already know this!)

Step 4

Working like Amazon and iTunes, YouTube is wonderful for recommending new music based on what you’ve just watched. Not only that but once you’ve watched a video and you get the screen with loads of videos you might also like, there’s sometimes a ‘YouTube Playlist’ option in the top left hand corner. This will continually play a selection of videos similar to what you’ve seen.

Step 5

Probably the most obvious way, but worth a mention – Google. Search “Spanish pop songs” or “Portuguese rap music”. You’ll probably get a lot of Yahoo answers pages from 2004, but they might give you a couple of gems.

Step 6

Musicroamer is a great website which pretty much does everything that the other ideas do but a lot quicker! Type in a name of an artist you are interested in and you are presented with a web   of similar artists – and then another web of similar artists when you click each link. It’s actually a lot of fun and a great way to find out about new artists!