28/04/2019
Songs - Liedjes: The ideal way to learn a language! Everybody talks about how easy it is for young children to pick up a new language compared to adults. One of the main reasons that kids learn so quickly is because of all the songs they hear at school and in language lessons or on TV. While adults struggle to remember the content of a lesson one week after the class, children are constantly remembering and using what they learned as those songs just go round and round in their heads, all the while teaching them the vocabulary, grammar and sentence construction that conventional lessons take much longer to do. If you have kids in Dutch school, no doubt you will have heard of Kinderen Voor Kinderen, a children's pop choir that makes a new song every Kings Day for children across the country to join in with. SO WHY AS ADULTS DON'T WE DO THE SAME?? There are many many resources that can help you to really benefit from listening to Dutch songs. While Dutch radio can be a daunting experience for lower-level learners, why not instead search the web for "Nederlandse liedjes" and find something you like and read along as you listen? One of the best resources we have found is this website, https://www.dutchsongs.overtuin.net/dutch-songs-pop-chansons.html You can choose any song by era (from 1900s to present day) or by audience (kids, pop, traditional etc) and listen and read the song words AND ALSO READ THE TRANSLATION into English! So incredibly useful! In no time, you will find yourself singing lines of Dutch songs in the shower and knowing exactly what they mean! Vocabulary, grammar useful phrases: it's all there! Why not even surprise your Dutch friends next Kings Day by knowing some traditional festival songs? You'll feel like a real Dutchie for sure! Enjoy everyone and happy singing!
