Here at Coffee Break Languages, we hope that you find the time this festive season to relax at home, spend time with family and catch up with friends. As you know, we like to provide you with ways to fit a little bit of language learning into whatever you’re doing. And what better opportunity to do this than to introduce
Listening to songs in the language you’re learning is an effective and enjoyable way to practise your language skills. It can help improve your listening comprehension and your pronunciation and, on top of this, music is catchy! This means that the new words, phrases and structures that you hear within a song may be easier to remember and reuse in
This Saturday 30th November is Saint Andrew’s Day, the official national day of Scotland. That’s why this week we’re bringing you a Tune for Tuesday from Coffee Break Languages’ home country. Hùg air a’ bhonaid mhòir is a song in Scots Gaelic by Julie Fowlis, a folk singer and instrumentalist from the Scottish Outer Hebrides. You may recognise her voice from the
Listening to songs in the language you’re learning is an effective and enjoyable way to practise your language skills. It can help improve your listening comprehension and your pronunciation and, on top of this, music is catchy! This means that the new words, phrases and structures that you hear within a song may be easier to remember and reuse in
¡Hola amigos! We’re sure that many of you will already known the artist of today’s Tune for Tuesday. Today we’re listening to Bailando which was written and recorded by Enrique Iglesias and Cuban artists Descemer Bueno and Gente de Zona in 2014. The song topped the charts all over Latin America, in Spain and in many other European countries, but was not so
Listening to songs in the language you’re learning is an effective and enjoyable way to practise your language skills. It can help improve your listening comprehension and your pronunciation and, on top of this, music is catchy! This means that the new words, phrases and structures that you hear within a song may be easier to remember and reuse in
Do you already know any songs by Francis Cabrel? The iconic sound of his acoustic guitar in his songs such as Petite Marie, La corrida and Je l’aime à mourir has made them well-loved by many across the French-speaking world, and he is generally considered to have been an extremely influential figure in the development of popular music in France. After winning a
It’s no secret that here at Coffee Break Languages we’re all ABBA fans, so when we were planning our special event which included the announcement of Coffee Break Swedish, we felt it was only appropriate to include a few references to ABBA. Some of these were fairly obvious, taken from the most popular ABBA songs, but there were a few
Listening to songs in the language you’re learning is an effective and enjoyable way to practise your language skills. It can help improve your listening comprehension and your pronunciation and, on top of this, music is catchy! This means that the new words, phrases and structures that you hear within a song may be easier to remember and reuse in
Ciao a tutti! Have you heard of Mina, also known as La tigre di Cremona (the tiger from Cremona)? Her combination of traditional Italian melodies, swing and other styles, as well as her impressive vocal range of three octaves made her an important figure in Italian 1960s and 70s pop music, and between 1958 and 2003, she released an album every
Hallo zusammen! Today we’re bringing you a Tune for Tuesday from a singer and rapper who is fairly new to the German hip hop music scene. Namika, whose real name is Hanan Hamdi, released her first single Lieblingsmensch in 2015, making her an overnight success and reaching Number 1 in the German Singles Chart. She has now released two albums,
This Tuesday we’re listening to a song which we’re sure almost all of you know already, Livin’ la vida loca – the full Spanish version, of course! It was written by Desmond Child and Draco Rosa and performed by Enrique Martín Morales, better known as Ricky Martin or the ‘King of Latin Pop’. It was a huge international success when
Bonjour à tous et à toutes ! Today’s Tune for Tuesday is by Carla Bruni, a French-Italian singer-songwriter who is also the wife of Nicholas Sarkozy. You may already know Quelqu’un m’a dit, as it was very popular throughout Europe when it was released in 2002, reaching the top ten in Italy, Portugal, Germany and Switzerland. This song is great
Salve a tutti! This week, we’re bringing you a Tune for Tuesday from the so-called Principe dei cantautori (“The Prince of the singer-songwriters”). Francesco De Gregori is an Italian poet and folk-rock singer who has been an important figure in Italian music since the 1970s. And the good news for us is that his song Buonanotte Fiorellino is a great
This week, our Tune for Tuesday comes from Austrian composer, Franz Schubert. Schubert (1797-1828) was a very famous composer of the early Romantic period, who was especially well-known for his vocal compositions, known as Lieder (German for “songs”). Wanderers Nachtlied is a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe set to music by Schubert in 1822. We hope you enjoy listening to this
¡Hola! This Tuesday, we’re listening to La vuelta al mundo by Puerto Rican group, Calle 13. Their music is a fusion of a number of styles, notably hip-hop and Puerto Rican reggaeton. They have had huge success within Latin America and further afield, holding the record for winning the most Latin Grammy Awards. While you’re listening to La vuelta al
Bonjour tout le monde ! This week’s Tune for Tuesday comes from French singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg. Often considered one of the greats of French popular music, he wrote songs influenced by a variety of genres to create a distinctive style. This week we’re listening to his song La chanson de Prévert, inspired by Jacques Prévert’s poem, Les feuilles mortes. There
Ciao a tutti! We couldn’t possibly talk about Italian music without mentioning Italian opera. We’re sure that many of you are familiar with Luciano Pavarotti, an Italian operatic tenor (the term used to describe a higher male voice). He was one of the most successful operatic singers of all time and was particularly well-known for his performances in bel canto opera
Hallo! Wie geht’s? This week, Max Raabe’s Tune for Tuesday is going to help us with our German! He wrote the song Für Frauen ist das kein Problem, and many others, to perform with his Berlin-based Palast Orchester, which he founded with fellow students while studying opera in Berlin. Together, Raabe and Palast Orchester perform covers of cabaret songs from
¡Hola a todos! Welcome back to Tune for Tuesday, bringing you a new song every week from around the world! This week we’re listening to Ojalá que llueva café by Juan Luis Guerra from the Dominican Republic. Possibly one of the most internationally successful Latin artists, his music is heavily influenced by a range of styles, including native Caribbean merengue
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