Sing it out

　Experts at the University of Edinburgh studied the relationship between music and remembering a foreign language. They found that remembering words in a song was the best way to remember even one of the most difficult languages.

　The experts got the result by doing an experiment¹. They invited 60 people and divided them into three groups of 20. Then they asked the three groups of people to study words from the Hungarian language. Why Hungarian, you ask? The experts said they chose Hungarian because not many people knew the language.

　All three groups studied the Hungarian language for 15 minutes. The scientists asked them to learn in three different ways. They asked the first group to simply speak the words. They had the second group speak the words to a rhythm². And they asked the third group to sing the words. Then the three groups of people took part in a few language tests to see what they remembered. The group of people who learned the Hungarian words by singing them did better than the others. They did the best in four out of five of the tests. They also performed two times better than those who simply learned the words by speaking them.

　Dr Katie Overy was one of the experts who did the experiment. She thought the findings could help those who struggle to learn foreign languages. “The brain seems to like music, especially for remembering,” she said.

　So, the next time you study for a language test, try to sing out what you need to remember.

Notes:

1. experiment n. 实验 2. rhythm n. 节奏