Can you actually understand Chinese songs through listening?

[RogerGe]

I have gotten to the point where I can understand 97%+ of 新闻联播, but I still can't understand even 50% of song lyrics, and not rap songs, but mainstream pop songs, or even really slow songs. Like two months ago I was sitting there watching some random 跨年演唱会 with my eyes staring at the tiny weird non-黑体 font lyrics in the corner, and I was still having a lot of trouble with understanding what they were saying (maybe because they are too fast or my reading speed is too slow). Obviously people listen to songs because they sound good rather than for deep meanings, but Is this normal?

[somethingfunny]

I can't understand the lyrics to English songs. 

 

Even when I know the words I have a hard time figuring out what they're on about.

[DavyJonesLocker]

 

21 hours ago, somethingfunny said:

I can't understand the lyrics to English songs. 

 

 

haha they make no sense to me neither.

 

It's hard to understand chinese songs as tones and often pronunciation go out the window. Even when you hear the word you have no clue of the character. If you have QQmusic or xiami then you can follow the lyrics. I have been known to be belt out 南山南 by 张磊 in the shower every now and then. It's a nice way to study chinese if you want to call it "study".

 

一場遊戲一場夢 by 王杰 is an all time classic too. 

 

 

 

 

[Wippen (inactive)]

On 3/2/2018 at 1:25 PM, somethingfunny said:

can't understand the lyrics to English songs

or sometimes you happen to think they are singing something else than what they are. for example Bon Jovi's Livin on a Prayer there is a line that sounds "it doesn't matter whether we will make it or not" for a for while I thought he was singing "it doesn't matter whether we are naked or not". (I am not a fan of this type of music in general but that tune is quite catchy)

[Publius]

我能想到最浪漫的事

就是和你一起賣賣電腦

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmeM46a3IDc&feature=youtu.be&t=61

 

[Shelley]

9 hours ago, Tøsen said:

"it doesn't matter whether we will make it or not" for a for while I thought he was singing "it doesn't matter whether we are naked or not".

 

This is called a mondegreen, mishearing lyrics usually (it can be applied to ordinary speech) and thinking they are something else from the original.

 

Just thought it was interesting.

[Wippen (inactive)]

1 hour ago, Shelley said:

This is called a mondegreen,

Thanks for this glorious word. I looked it up on wiki and found this

 

The creation of mondegreens may be driven in part by cognitive dissonance, as the listener finds it psychologically uncomfortable to listen to a song and not make out the words. Steven Connor suggests that mondegreens are the result of the brain's constant attempts to make sense of the world by making assumptions to fill in the gaps when it cannot clearly determine what it is hearing. Connor sees mondegreens as the "wrenchings of nonsense into sense"

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondegreen

 

Actually this is relevant for languag learning. Often I hear a word and in order to remember it may cheat and make up something that sounds a bit similar.

 

[Lumbering Ox]

8 hours ago, Shelley said:

This is called a mondegreen, mishearing lyrics usually (it can be applied to ordinary speech) and thinking they are something else from the original.

 

 

 

You mean Girls Generation doesn't have a boy chicken, a boy on their chin?

 

Next thing you know you will be telling me that Hendrix doesn't want to be excused while he kisses this guy or that Ice T from Body Count doesn't really have the Belize. [Cop Killer, "love" the police always sounds like "Love" the Belize and I have to amuse myself with wondering why he hates the people of British Honduras so much.

 

There is a term for it on the youtube where they take songs and put in English subtitles of what it sounds like in English as opposed to the actual lyrics. I've actually discovered some pretty good tunes that way and sometimes the subtitles are really funny.

 

But serious, the Girls Generation thing, it really does sound like "I got a boy on my chin, I got a boy chicken" you don't need subtitles for that.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0uKO0KQDzk

1:42

 

All that said, on the original topic, I don't think my chinese will ever be good enough to understand the following video but I think I can live with that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxzgwJ8tSE0

[Lu]

On 04/03/2018 at 8:59 AM, Lumbering Ox said:

All that said, on the original topic, I don't think my chinese will ever be good enough to understand the following video but I think I can live with that.

Sometimes I just don't understand the world I'm living in. At the same time, this is glorious. On a Chinese note: it's interesting that she doesn't actually sing mǔjī, but m-jī. You can see it from her mouth movements. Which is probably lip-synched, but that just means she actually does it on purpose and knows what she is doing.

 

I think it's pretty normal not to understand Chinese lyrics right away. Isn't that why all the music videos have subtitles? At the same time, as Imron always says: practice what you want to learn. Understanding most of 新闻联播 is impressive, but you probably got there by listening to a lot of 新闻联播. So if you want to understand lyrics, listening to a lot of songs might help.