Music: a gift for language learners
A recent study at the University of Edinburgh’s Reid School of Music indicates that learners’ memory skills are greatly improved when memorising to music.
In this research, participants were asked to memorise phrases in Hungarian, and repeat them fifteen minutes later. Though each group studied in the same listen-and-repeat style, one group heard the phrases spoken, the second heard phrases set to a rhythm, and the third heard phrases in song. The singing group was able to recall far more Hungarian than the other two groups.