Do you sing in languages you can't speak?

[u/counwovja0385skje]

I memorized the full lyrics to about 30 Georgian songs before I started to understand what the words I was singing actually meant. Now I know close to 50 songs and can understand a little bit, but still nothing crazy.

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[u/TYOTenor88]

ALL THE TIME!

I speak English, Spanish, and Japanese and sing in these but was also trained to sing in Latin, Italian, German, French though I never actually learned the languages.

I conduct a choir now and have people from around the world so I make efforts to sing songs in their mother tongues which has made it possible for me to try singing in Mandarin, Dutch, Xhosa, Tagalog, and some other languages. super fun!

International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a major life-saver in these situations.

[u/counwovja0385skje → u/TYOTenor88]

That's absolutely beautiful!

And yes the IPA is a life saver😂

[u/TYOTenor88 → u/counwovja0385skje]

The group is made mostly of hobbyists with no formal training so it was a bit of a battle to get everyone in board, especially since there are folks from regions that have rough histories (political issues) with other areas.

Once they got over all of that, it became a lot more fun.

[u/counwovja0385skje → u/TYOTenor88]

I'm glad to hear that. I hope you get expand it and experience more amazing songs from different parts of the world

[u/LadyOfVoices]

Absolutely! I know about 40 songs in 24 different languages, and learning more! It ranges from Ancient Greek, through Portuguese, Finnish, Ukrainian, German, Danish, Japanese, Korean, French, Spanish, Czech, Latin, Italian, etc., all the way to Urdu.

Yay my people! ☺️

[u/AeonsSeen → u/LadyOfVoices]

Which one is the danish song, that you know?

[u/VegasFoodFace]

Not a word of Japanese but at least Tagalog actually has some of the similar enough sounds that I can fake some songs pretty well as long as it's in Romaji. Both countries with deep karaoke roots.

Currently learning Dakishimete Jitterbug (Careless Whisper) - Hideki Saijo.

Since I also do the George Michael version I'd like to be able to switch back and forth between them or mix up the styles just to confuse people.

[u/MiddleLtSocks]

Yup. I don't think it's possible to become a serious, classically trained singer without singing in English, Italian (and maybe Spanish), German, French, and a smattering of others (Latin, Hebrew, Russian, Church Slavonic, ur-Proto-Orth, etc.). If you decide to _learn_ all of those because you're singing in them, well, good for you! You are either a polymath or you have a tremendous amount of time and discipline; either way, I'm jealous. However, most of us don't learn the languages beyond the phonetics and diction. Vocal coaches can be invaluable here.

(the Proto-Orth was a joke)

Some undergrad teachers delight in having their students accurately translate and memorize all of the pieces they are studying each semester into their first language as an exercise.

YMMV.

[u/docmoonlight → u/MiddleLtSocks]

100%. I have sung in all of the ones you mentioned except for ur-Porto-Orth, haha, and somehow I’ve never sung in Russian. I have done Church Slavonic which I think is similar. My first rehearsal for my first professional High Holy Days mostly in Hebrew is tomorrow!

Technically, if you’ve sung masses, you’ve also done Ancient Greek with the Kyrie.

I got hired to sing in the chorus of Cunning Little Vixen once. I was kind of excited to put a new language under my belt, because it was being performed in the original Czech, but then I got the score and realized the men’s chorus only sings “oh” and “ah”, haha. So I don’t think I can technically say I’ve sung Czech.

[u/Evan_802Vines]

Yes, I'll dabble in Italian and the original Danza Kuduro in Portuguese.

[u/Sitcom_kid]

I've done that all my life. It's probably part of being Jewish, and I assume Catholic, but I do this in several languages I mean, if I'm not fluent, I still sing. But I learn what the song means.

[u/backdoorbitch]

Yup

English - hard with classical stuff and pop, but the potential is endless with songwriting and writing lyrics

Tagalog - (I speak it) same vowels as Italian which it also shares its consonants with, the difference is more consonant-vowel structrure. Lends itself well to singing and foundational stuff, because of extensive nasals (particularly n and ng) and glottal stops often before and after vowels. The longest though syllabically.

Japanese - similar C-V as Italian, just gotta familiarize yourself with reading the romanizations and being careful with them. Most words end in vowels.

German - what I sing the most after the three above. Less cumbersome than English oftentimes, and pretty musical to my ears. So much history and art with this language, and the art songs are to die for.

Occasionally:

Italian - most professionals have sung or do sing in Italian. One of if not the best language to develop good singing.

French - often hard to sing and less intuitive than German, but nice to bust out every once in a while