Learning a new language often brings to mind the idea of grammar drills and boring memorization of vocabulary words. While it's true that you will have to do some of this, there are things you can do to make it more fun. For example, you can use film to help your language learning. Likewise, music is a great tool to use. Some songs are just so infectious that we can’t seem to get them out of our heads, even though we may want to! Whether you are a beginning, intermediate or advanced student of French, here are the best songs for learning French.

Beginner: Use children’s songs to learn the basics.

Children’s songs are a great way to help a beginner learn French. Think about all the songs that you learned as children to help you learn English. There are songs about numbers, letters, phonics, and everyday situations like getting ready for bed or feeling sick. The same sort of songs exist in French too, and you can use them to help you learn and remember the language!Minidisco, has some great songs in their Chansons pour Enfants Français section. you will find songs covering the subjects you generally learn in first year French classes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEZKxTzuX5sWhen you get a little more advanced you can listen to songs like En Eté to learn vocabulary about the weather, leisure activities and more. The French lyrics are printed below each video so that you can follow along and the tunes are catchy enough that they are easy to remember. They have videos in German and Spanish, too!

Intermediate: Use French remakes of American songs.

Listening to remakes of songs you already know can help you during the awkward intermediate stage of language learning. This level is sort of like being at the teenager stage. You feel like you should know more than you do and there seems to be a hurdle you just can’t get over with respect to listening comprehension. Listening to French remakes of American songs while you are driving or working-out is a great way to begin to tune your ear to the French language. You can play them in the background - just play them and keep playing them. Part of learning a language is immersion and this is a great way to do it. Replay those songs! Immerse yourself in the French version of Camila Cabello’s "Havana."https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqFXcQIjWj8If you prefer alternative music, try this cover of Linkin Park’s Numb.After you have listened to a song enough to have the French version memorized, you can then compare the French lyrics to the English ones. This will help you learn new words and sentence structure because you will notice that the words are sometimes in a different order in French than they are in English. For example, we put the direct object ‘it’ after a verb, but in French it comes before a verb.

Advanced: Use modern and classic songs to enhance fluency and cultural understanding.

Once you have mastered the basics and can communicate in everyday situations, chances are you will feel the desire to take your fluency to the next level by learning modern usage and slang. A great way to do this is with music! I suggest Elle Me Dit by Mika for learning some new slang. It is a great song with a dance beat and it will get stuck in your head. Fair warning!Another suggestion is to listen to Stromae, a popular artist from Belgium. His song Papaoutai is easy to understand and has cultural significance. His songs are about universal subjects that you can relate to no matter where you live. Try to find songs that have the lyrics in the videos like these. Sometimes it is hard to understand what they are saying in songs, so being able to read the lyrics as you hear it the first few times is helpful. You can also use Classic Music to help you. I would be remiss if I didn’t suggest that you check out French National Treasure Edith Piaf. You may have heard parts of her song Je Ne Regrette Rien on TV commercials for Dove chocolate here in the US. And many of us are familiar with La Vie en Rose, which is both a song and the title of the movie made about her in 2007. Whether you use Classic or Modern Music to help you learn French, you will be able to find numerous songs on Youtube to suit your needs. NOTE! Be careful when learning new vocabulary with music! Make sure to double check the meanings of new words you learn. When writing poetry or song lyrics, the author is often more concerned with rhythm and flow than precision of word meanings. For example, they may use the word ‘goûter’ as a synonym for ‘aimer’ (to like), which is correct. However, the usual meaning for ‘goûter’ is ‘to taste’.