How to Translate Spanish Songs into English

Learning Spanish by translating Spanish songs into English is one of the best ways to learn Spanish verb conjugations and more Spanish words. Like English music, there are many different genres in Spanish. Some are rock, jazz, salsa, religious, and ranchera. Spanish music is beautiful and expressive. Like in English songs, love songs in Spanish are very popular. Listening to songs in Spanish will also help you learn about different cultures. Here"s how to translate Spanish songs into English.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Start listening to Spanish speaking radio stations until you find a genre or genres of music that appeal to you. There are plenty of Spanish radio stations playing different types of Spanish genres in most areas. Once you find a song you like, listen for some of the words and do a Google search. Your favorite song should appear in the Google search. You can also listen for the radio announcer to announce the title of the song and name of the musician or band.

2. Once you find a song, type the title into Google followed by the word "lyrics." For example if you're looking for "Todo Mi Amor" by Paulina Rubio, type "Todo Mi Amor lyrics" into Google's search engine. There should be several results with the lyrics for the song.

3. Copy and paste the lyrics in Spanish into a word document like Microsoft Word or Google Docs.

4. Go to Google Translate and paste the same lyrics into the box that says "enter text." The link for Google Translate is in the resource section below. Make sure to translate from Spanish to English.

5. Copy and paste the English translation below the Spanish lyrics on your word document to learn how to translate Spanish songs into English.

6. Download the song in Spanish from iTunes or any other preferred music download website.

7. Listen to the Spanish song while reading the words in Spanish. Listen to the pronunciation. With a few exceptions, Spanish words are pronounced like they are spelled.

8. Listen to the Spanish song while reading the words in English. Repeat often until you are able to translate the Spanish song into English. After listening to the song five or six times, you should have an understanding of the theme, meaning and words in the Spanish song.

Tips & Warnings

• Keep in mind that there is no exact translations for Spanish to English. In Spanish, adjectives usually come after nouns. In Spanish there are more uses of indirect and direct objects like me, se, le, les, lo, la, las, and los. Spanish also uses the subjunctive more than English.
• Think in Spanish after you understand the words.
• Never steal songs from the Internet for free.

Resources

• Google Translate

[sonni57]

on 6/21/2009 Good tips on how to translate songs from one language to another.

[goodselfme]

on 6/20/2009 Learning to translate songs from Spanish to English sounds easier than I thought before reading your good article.