Why Music is the Fast Track to Fluency (Interview with Desta Haile, Languages through Music) ♫ 14

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Bienvenidos. Welcome to episode 14 of the Learn Spanish Con Salsa podcast and this episode I interview Desta Haile from Languages through Music. Desta has 15 years of experience as both a musician and language teacher. She talks about how after spending over a decade learning French in school, she found herself still pretty uncomfortable with speaking the language. It was later when she learned Portuguese using music that she discovered a faster and more efficient way to learn languages that worked for her. Desta's teaching approach uses music to make lessons fun, engaging, and culturally relevant for her students. Languages through Music has playlists in Spanish, Portuguese, French and English. I really hope you enjoy this conversation with Desta and that it inspires you to find a language learning approach that really works for you. Now let's get to the conversation with Desta Haile. Desta welcome to the Learn Spanish Con Salsa podcast.

Thank you so much, hola.

For everyone out there that's listening. If you could just introduce yourself, just talk a little bit about you and why you started Languages through Music.

Sure. Well, I have had like 15 years in music, so as a vocalist, a language teacher and some music and languages have always been my favorite things. But then I realized music was helping me learn languages really quickly and in a fun, natural way. I took French my whole life pretty much, but when I graduated I didn't feel I spoke it and I didn't have the competence or the feeling for the language. But then after a couple months of learning some French songs from music work, then it just clicked. And then I started using music to learn Portuguese. And that clicked and Turkish, even languages I didn't really know. It helps me dive into the language, learn the words, learn the pronunciation, learn about the cultures, the countries that speak the language. So that's how it came about. So I had the idea like five years ago of just putting the two together, it seemed to make a lot of sense as you know, cause you're doing Spanish Con Salsa..

Yeah. I mean, and I kind of stumbled into learning with music too. Like I remember I would, um, you know, have people compliment me on my accent and I was speaking and they would say, well, you can't be from the U S and I'd go, well yeah, but I didn't realize at first that it was because I was listening to music and I kind of stumbled into it myself and I realized how effective it was. So I'm always interested to hear about other people that are learning through music because I get mixed feedback. I have some people in the language learning community that say, Oh, you can learn, um, you know, maybe some songs you can learn a little bit of vocabulary, but you're really not going to be able to learn a language through music. What would you say to someone that would say, you know, learning languages through music is limited, that you can't learn but so much by just using music. What would you say to someone that says that?

I think we all learn differently. So in my case, nothing's worked better and I've studied Portuguese, French, Turkish, Spanish, Tagalog, Japanese, Arabic. I'm not at all claiming to speak all of them, but I just love taking language lessons. And so I've had a lot of different teachers, a lot of different styles, gone to lots of different schools. I've taught for, you know, over 15 different language schools. I've done my research and I've got, I've tried so many different books or methods or sites or apps. I'm always up for trying something new because I just like the process of trying to learn. But personally music was really the fastest, the most efficient thing for me. Also for French, you know, I had 12 years of classes and Portuguese I didn't have, I think maybe I had a couple of weeks before I went to Brazil, but I never took classes in Portuguese. And I feel my Portuguese is kind of stronger than my French. People always think I'm Brazilian or I'm a native Portuguese speaker. But with French people still, you know, I don't feel like, I don't feel the confidence or the hundred percent ease that I do had, I just learned it with music maybe, you know, and I've never taken Spanish lessons, but from what I've gotten from the music I feel is really enriching because it's not just vocabulary and grammar, it's also, you know where the countries that speak Spanish, it's not just Spain, it's Cuba, or Peru, Chile, Colombia and it's been this journey of like discovering artists and styles and songs as well. And then that's something to talk about, listening to connect to people over. So everyone has their own opinion. Maybe some people want to be hittin' the grammar books and stuff, but that's never really worked for me. And I spent a long time trying lots of different methods.

So you mentioned a couple things I want to touch on. So can you talk a little bit about your experience learning French, because you said you were taking French for 12 years in school?

Yeah, my whole school life really.

And so how do you feel, or I guess, what is it about learning Portuguese with music that you felt makes you more confident about your Portuguese versus with your French that you spent 12 years studying academically? What, what's that? What's the difference that it made using to learn Portuguese that really made you feel more comfortable?

I'm quite an impatient learner. So if I don't see quite a lot of progress in a short amount of time, I kind of get a little annoyed, I guess. So with music. I feel that with each song I started measuring it a while ago because they had something in the UK called, um, talk to the future, where somebody determined that if you had a thousand words in a language, you kind of had it down. Um, so I've kind of started measuring when I was teaching it was people were getting like 52 new words and phrases per lesson. And so I, I found, I felt, I felt kind of encouraged by that, that even though it was a song and it was fun, um, you know, it was actually a lot of vocabulary in one go. And also lots of pronunciation and kind of the most used vocabulary, you know, the most, yeah, the most popular words, the most common words, the most, it wasn't some obscure stuff that I'm never gonna use. Like even in Duolingo, I get sentences and I'm like, on what planet would have ever need this sentence?

Yeah. A green cat jumps over the moon. You're like, what?*laughs*

Yeah, so with music, you never get that. Everything in music is there for a reason. You know, um, and it's telling, it's telling stories and that's how we, that's how we learn. I feel that's the most natural way to learn and the most effortless way to learn. You know, and many schools are trying to adopt this now even outside of language learning, but to make language learning more holistic like that in that is um, you know, we're learning through a project, project-based learning or a story-based learning because you learn so much more than just focusing on one particular thing.

So tell me a little bit about your method and your process. So if I was to take a class with you and we were to have a session you wanted to use music in the session, how would you, how would you work with me? What would be the agenda of the lesson?

I would first send over a playlist of songs. So we'd discuss your goals, why are you wanna to learn it, etc. Your experience with the language already. And then I'd send you over a playlist and the lyrics and the keywords, we start by, so everyone's, the students, this is the song. And then we, depending on the level, I'll read through or they'll read through. So we have a focus on pronunciation first. Then we will see through a couple of times so that really helps memorize it. Then based on the keywords, we'll get the students to kind of make new phrases from the words they've learned in the songs. So they have to kind of explain the song, translate it so that I know they, they know the meaning and then I'll get the students to use the vocab. they've gotten from that song in a new way, in an original way.

All right. Now Desta you mentioned earlier that as you're learning through music, you also learn a lot about culture. And I think that's one of the more important things when you're learning a language because language is not something that you learn outside of talking and communicating with real people, right? Like everybody is from somewhere. Everybody has their own unique background and everyone speaks a certain way because of that. Um, and I think what's missing in a lot of language learning, like you mentioned learning through textbooks or learning grammar is you really don't get a lot of that right? Sometimes they'll have like a cultural note at the end where they'll tell you like, oh, people like to eat platanos in this country. But they won't actually give you a feel for like the real culture. So can you explain a little bit about how you feel that in your own learning and in your teaching you've learned a lot more about culture through using music?

Yeah, I think it's really interesting because I think that's also something that just bored me senseless at school. You know, it was always these old, you know, French comics or French. When I was learning, you know, in west Africa to begin with. Or then I was learning in Belgium or wherever I wasn't learning in France. Like, you know, it's, I think when you see people that look like you, or when you get to travel as well in your lessons, that makes it interesting. And, and why do people speak Spanish in the Caribbean? Why do, you know, like what's the history? Who are the people who I find, I think that's, again, going back to stories, I think it's just more interesting to learn like that. And also, you know, so, so many countries or places think their version of the language is better, but maybe someone will not like the sound of Spanish in Madrid but loves the sound of Spanish in Bogotáand then be more inspired to, to learn that, you know, and then they can source the music or films or books or whatever they want to learn about from a culture that they connect with more. I think it's interesting in terms of the styles of music too, you know, so we have Brazilian Portuguese for example, which mixes, you know, Portuguese put. Whereas from African languages and styles like Samba, which has its roots in Angola and Semba, that stuff fascinates me. Or you know, reflecting history. So when Brazil had their dictatorship period, which unfortunately it sounds like they might be entering again now, a lot of the artists were exiled. A lot of the artists were writing kind of protest songs. You know. One of the artists who was exiled ended up becoming minister of culture later, Gilberto Gil. I just read an article today talking about how some of the signs you used to protest this fascist that just got voted in. They use lyrics that were written under the, um, previous dictators. So yeah, I just think it gives you a language is a living thing and it changes all the time and it changes because of people in travels and history and politics, I think it's, it's interesting. And then also you see how some words are the same indifferent languages or, yeah, it's, it's a vibrant thing is a, not to sound like, like Q-Tip, but you know, it's, it's an evolving thing. So I think if you just learn it from what textbooks it's dry and it's lifeless and it's not fun and it's not about people and it should be.

Yeah, I completely agree. I think too, um, a lot of the people I've worked with and even in my own personal experience with learning Spanish, I learned that, you know, just like you mentioned with French, a lot of the focus was on France. Well, when I learned Spanish in school, a lot of the focus was on Spanish from Spain. And being in the US I mean we're in a completely different continent, part of the world. There's not that many Spanish speakers from Spain, um, where I live. So it was a huge disconnection, not only just from, I would say the culture, but from the community that was surrounding me that I was learning a language that people that actually speak that lived near me, but I was learning it in a way that would make it completely ineffective and make me unable to even talk to them even though I was supposedly quote unquote learning the same language. So I do think sort of having that perspective, having that, having that context is really important. Otherwise, like you said, it is demotivating. It is boring if you feel like you've been learning for 12 years and then you can't have a conversation with someone who speaks French because they're from west Africa and you don't recognize their accent, then what are you doing? You know,

With music you like, you know, then you get the accent, you get the slang you get the culture, you get, you get the whole vibe.

Yeah. And I also push back on people that say, oh but music is not like it's not grammatically correct. And I go, well, but that's how people talk, right? Of course you should learn the proper way to say things, but you also have to learn how to fend for yourself in the real world and in a real conversation. So if I'm listening to like salsa or bachata, where a lot of the singers have Caribbean accents in Spanish, um, it's going to help me when I actually talk to these people in, in the real world. Because, you know, learning how folks talk in Madrid is not necessarily going to prepare me to have a conversation when I go on vacation in Santo Domingo. So, so yeah, I mean I think I definitely agree with that. I think it's, um, it's definitely something that's overlooked from an academic perspective. And I want to ask you, so from the US I feel like when language is taught in school, right, they usually start in probably the seventh grade, which is when I guess you're around 12 years old. At least that's how it was when I grew up. And I think now they're starting maybe a little earlier and there's some schools that are doing immersion and there's some bilingual schools, but those are few and far between. Um, so I feel like waiting until 12 years old to start teaching a language already shows that there's not a priority placed on language learning and we're really not taking it seriously. Do you find in the UK and in other places that you've lived and learned that there's not been a priority with learning languages, or is different than it is in the US where you feel like language learning is more a part of the culture and bilingualism and multiculturalism?

Good question. I don't think language learning is a priority here because people assume everyone's just going to learning this. And so many people want to learn English, of course, I don't think it's obligatory in the schools, which I think is a real shame. I think the place for me that really made me, that really first made me think about, oh wow, like languages were cool. You know, everyone, everyone's speaks two, three, four was in Belgium. Um, where I finished high school and it seems it's, you had to take at least one other language there and it was normal to meet people who spoke two, three, four languages. Um, and my first language teaching job actually was at a really lovely school that's still still running go Tuti Fruity. And it was from three to 12 year olds and it was a language school and it's run by this really lovely Italian Mama called Patricia Peticci. And she trains all the teachers in really teaching. So she doesn't use any translation in the classes. But you teach through music, you teach through theater, you teach through cooking, you know, fun stuff. And the kids were really.... You know, people say"oh, if you start too young, they won't speak anything properly." Butl I saw kids who were very aware that they could speak English with me in class, but then French to mommy and then Dutch to daddy or then something else at school, you know. So I think definitely languages should come in earlier. My god-daughter she's Malian Belgian French speaker, so she speaks French at home, Dutch at school and with me, you know, I, I try and speak to her mainly in English, so I don't, yeah, I think, I think it' should start young, I don't agree that you can't learn a language as an adult. Cause some people are like, oh, it's too late. You have to start at five. It's nonsense. You just have to do it in a fun way. Like music, like films, like cooking, like, yeah,. London's super multicultural and there's lots of other languages. I think people mainly try and learn Spanish, French, um, most people have taken a bit of French and German at school. But yeah, I don't think it's, I don't think language is done the justice it should be done at school. I don't know if that's because you know of certain exams that have to be passed if they do take a language. But I've never heard kids, and I've taught a lot of kids here too, saying that they love their language class and I think it should be easy to love a language class.

Yeah. And I agree with you too about that point that um, you know, adults can learn languages. I think that there is this misconception in language learning that I, like you said, if you don't start when you're five years old or if you're not learning from the womb that you'll never be able to speak properly or that even if you do speak that you will always have an accent. And I actually find, you know, and you can also attest to this with kind of your experience that, you know, learning through music really does help improve your accent. Even if you're like me and you can't sing at all, cause I'm not a vocalist, I don't have a good singing voice, but I think learning with music, you're a lot more aware of the sound and that you, you do naturally just improve your pronunciation and you really don't have to have a very obvious, you know, accent. Um, when you're speaking another language.

I mean, I had some real, I had some teachers who really terrorized me when I was a kid in terms of learning French, you know, so I was too scared to be speaking anyway. I think music helps to put people at ease. I've had students like,"Oh, can we, you know, can I not sing it?" Well singing helps it stick in your mind. So if I'm doing like a workshop, I turn the music up loud so no one can hear your voice anyway.

That's a good strategy.

Because a lot of people get really nervous and I don't think you can learn anything if you're nervous, you know, I think people really need to be at ease for anything to sink in. Whether that's math, or language or whatever. I don't think people can learn anything properly if they're stressed. And I think being put on the spot and having, uh, you know, to read out some awkward awkward sentence doesn't really, it doesn't really set the set the vibe. Um, yeah. So definitely music's nice because people can, well it's relaxing. It's, you know, sometimes you can, you can pick lyrics that are really funny as well. So people are like focusing on the story rather than feeling nervous about the way they speak it. I think we've been conditioned to feel that if we're not suffering in some kind of way, we're not learning because you know, exams and homework and grammar and in any subjects we're used to school not being like,"Oh yea, school." Or at least for language classes. So I think people are...that's what makes people suspicious. They're like music. Can you really just learn from music? Um, which is really underestimating music and, and whether or not, yeah, some people are like I can't sing or I'm not really that into music, but music's into you like music just sinks in. Like whether or not you're trying or whether or not you're really, um, yeah, with the know the artist or not, I think you just find a song you like and you'll be surprised that how much faster you can learn something. And having to sing the words together. You get the rhythm, you get the melody, the sounds of a language I feel much faster than you would just reading it from a book.

Yeah. There's a couple of things that you said that I, that I really like. One thing that I love is as, um, as a neuro language coach, so we're talking a lot about neuroscience and how that affects language learning. And you talked about people kind of getting anxious or nervous about, it's almost like a performance anxiety when you have to speak a language. And there's actually some science behind that, that we actually perceive that type of social pressure the same way we perceive a physical wound, right?

Oh no.

So if we're ostracized or we feel like we're put on the spot, we automatically interpret that. Our brain can't tell the difference between that situation and something literally cutting us like with a knife. That's how, that's how potent that is. So you're right, your brain does actually shut down when you're nervous and you're anxious about, about learning. And there's one part of the brain just to kind of touch on a little bit, I don't want to go too far into the neuroscience, but I think it's an important, the part of the brain called the amygdala, which is responsible for our fight, flight or freeze response, which most people call fight or flight. But it's actually three, there's fight, flight or freeze, which is what most of us do with language learning, right? When someone starts talking to us and we feel like,"oh my god, I'm on the spot." We freeze. You know, we might know the words they're in our brain. We've learned it, but we, we feel this like performance anxiety, like I don't know what to say, right? So we freeze. So if you activate that part of the brain, you've got no chance in being successful with language learning, but like you said, music can put you at ease. And for me personally, you know, at the end of a long day, like the, you know, cause most of us are trying to do other things. We're very busy, we have jobs, we have children, we have other responsibilities, we have social lives. So learning a language is not something most of us do full time. So, you know, at the end of your day or at the end of your week when you're like completely depleted and you get to put on some music, like how much fun is that? Like, I actually look forward to learning with music because it's, it's something like you said, it puts you at ease. You get to relax, and you really get to just enjoy it. So it doesn't feel like you're learning. It feels like you're just having a good time. And that's the best state for your brain to be in to be receptive and to actually learn new things. So I love that you said that cause it's actually been proven by neuroscience.

Yeah, I really, I really believe it and I think music really taps into our memory in a way like nothing else because I've noticed it a few times this year. Really interesting people....so I'll be doing a song with a student and they'll see a word and they'll be like,"Oh I know this word, I know this word" and then they'll start singing or humming the song where they first saw that word."Oh yeah, it's a song. Yeah. Where he moved to a city and then he was writing the girl, ah, this word, it means that!", you know? Cause they attach it, it's like the melody carries the, the story. The memory.

Yeah. The association.

They zoom in on, on the word like,"yeah, I remember that." And it gives people, you know, kind of feeling of achievement to, you know, to, to be able to, because it's a lot to get what 50 new words from, from a lesson or a song or to know about an artist from a place you've never been to or you know, I think it's, I think it's empowering really because once people get into learning through music and they find artists that they really appreciate, then that's like giving them keys to a whole new world really. Like you find one artist you love, you explore their whole discography. You know, some of these artists have, I dunno, in the case of some of the Brazilian songs I teach, they have dozens and dozens and dozens of albums and so the student then has this, it's like introducing them to a new friend, you know? Then they're able to go through the songs and pick the songs apart themselves. And I think once you get into that phase, there's a, there's a quotation I really like, I forget from where, but it was saying how the best teachers make themselves unnecessary really quickly. And I really liked that. I really liked the idea of inspiring people to take their language learning into their own hands. And I think by giving them 10 or 20 songs, introducing them to 10 or 20 artists, I think that's, that's doing exactly that. Enabling them to learn themselves. What's nice about music as well is that there's a lot of repetition in lots of different ways. So the same words come back around like the most useful words you see again and again. And I think that speeds things up for people as well.

You know, I always start off, when, in Spanish con Salsa, when I start teaching a song, I always tell people to start with the chorus because the chorus has the most repetition. Usually it's gonna, you know, come up more than once in the song, which is, you know, the definition of a chorus, right? And then you hear the same phrases, you hear the same words over and over again. You really get the pronunciation down. So definitely using that aspect of music, um, can really help. And you don't have to stress and struggle and try to go, I need to remember this vocabulary. It's like, no, you'll hear it again and again and again. So that's the beauty of learning with music.

It's the vibe too, it's the clothes, it's the dancing, it's the...people stop stressing about,"oh, what do I sound like?" and they just kind of relax into it. And also I think that's great starting with the chorus. And then what's funny is that the, with the energy that the songs are delivered and people can go, wow, they must be dropping some real, real deep like pearls, wisdom, oh my god. And then it's like, I don't know, el ratón(the rat) did this or that, you know, there's not really, is not. Um, then I think people relax because people kind of, when, when you're learning a language you're like, oh my, they must be saying something really difficult, really deep or heavy and they're singing about like the neighborhood cat or washing up the dishes or, you know what I mean? And the people go wow, they're about normal day to day stuff and then, oh, I can chat about normal day to day stuff. I think when people, people get so stressed and put so much pressure on themselves to be able to kind of run a business meeting in that language, um, that they forget. Like even just getting the basics is a huge thing. That's what you're going to be using 90% of the time. Can you sound convincing, you know, introducing yourself to someone about your day, talking about how you feel like that's, if you can't do that, you'll never be able to run a business meeting. You need to take the small steps and I think we can do that with music, but quickly.

All right, so switching gears now I want to start with our quick fire round, so I'm going to ask you five questions in español and just answer off the top of your head. So,¿lista?

Sí. vamos.

Okay, pregunta número uno.¿Cuál es tu canción favorita en español?

Ay, que pregunta más(tan) difícil. Creo que...ahora es El Ratón by(por) Fania All Stars.

Ah, El Ratón(laughs) Es una classica,¿verdad?

Es una classica y tmbién para mi, todo que viene de Fania es buenísimo.

Pregunta número dos.¿Cuál es tu palabra favorita de español?

¿Palabra favorita? Oye.

¿Oye?

Oye, porque es una palabra que tiene muchos usos diferentes.

OK, y pregunta número tres.¿Cuál fue laúltima cosa que leíste, miraste, o escuchaste en español?

Una nueva cantante española, se llama Rosalia. Tiene una música(canción) que tengo en el WhatsApp Wednesdays,"Malamente."

Okay, pregunta número cuatro. OK, esto es un poquito difícil: saca tu teléfono y traduce elúltimo texto que recibiste al español.

Ay dios mío. Entonces..."Desta, esta semana estoy en Bath, es una ciudad aquíen Inglaterra, pero estoy aqui, estoy aquímartes durante el día. Pero tengo un concierto en Brixton la noche después. Me voy hasta el sábado porque tengo un concierto en Green Lanes. Después, tengo más tiempo, gracias." Entonces, es un músico con quien voy a tocar un concierto en enero. Y entonces tenemos que hacer un...ensayar juntos, pero es un músico muy bueno entonces nunca tiene tiempo.

Pregunta numero cinco. Esto es una pregunta al azar.¿Quécosa es considerada un lujo pero tu no puedes vivir sin ella?

Viajar.

So thank you Desta for participating in the quick fire round. And if folks want to get in touch with you and find out more about languages through music, um, how can they contact you on social media? Um, and do you have any projects coming up you want to let everyone know about?

Yeah, so, um, it's languages through music on Facebook and on Instagram. Online at the moment we have Spanish, French, Portuguese and English and I work with different teachers to deliver that. If people want to have lessons via Skype, we have you demean courses as well on my mixcloud, mixcloud.com forward slash languages tthroug music. I've been connecting with people who speak all kinds of different languages. I think we have 15 on there, so the online courses for those aren't ready yet, but if people wanted to contact me with like, you know, oh, I really want to learn Zulu, you know, I have a teacher for that and if they want to learn Swahili I have a teacher for that.

Thank you for joining me today on Learn Spanish Con Salsa.

Thank you for having me, muchas gracias.

So that's it for this episode. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Desta. To access any of the resources we talked about in today's episode. Go to the show notes page at learnspanishconsalsa.com/14 for episode 14 of the podcast. You can get links to everything that we talked about today, including some of the playlists that Desta has available for Languages through Music. As always, we'd love to hear your feedback. You can follow us on Instagram@learnspanishconsalsa, and send us a direct message there. You can also leave a comment on the show notes page, but if you found the conversation today valuable, I'd really appreciate if you could leave a rating or review in iTunes. I hope you heard something in today's conversation that will take you one step closer from being beginner to bilingual.

Thank you for listening to the learn Spanish gone Sansa podcast at learn Spanish. Go to[inaudible] dot com.