Musical education: What artists are making it easier for people to learn English, and who isn't?

• Learning English doesn’t have to be a boring task - in fact, many musicians have made it easier for non-English speakers to pick up some ‘lingo’
• Preply decided to find out who the musicians are that many fans are using as a means to learn English, based on their current research.
• Here are the artists that research found were the easiest to learn English from, and those artists who have made it more complex.

Have you ever heard a song by a non-English speaking musician only to find their diction and vocabulary are better than many of the people you’ve met in your life?

Perhaps that is because those artists in question chose to learn English not from a language school but from picking up dialogue from the pop culture world - be it television, film or on this occasion, music.

Shakira, for example, admitted that she was motivated to learn English so she could write songs for her first English-language album, and although she did work with a tutor, she listened to music, including Bob Dylan, to better understand the language.

She’s not alone either - Ricky Martin, Jackie Chan and Tove Lo have all recalled using English-speaking popular culture to help with the language barrier. But Preply, the online language learning app that connects tutors to learners worldwide, wanted to find out which artists are the easiest to learn from, and which artists are not.

They analysed over 150 music artists and the lyrics of 25 of their popular songs to create their metric, with the results somewhat surprising.

The science part (Methodology)

To determine the Language Difficulty Quotient (LDQ)—a score designed to quantify the accessibility of an artist’s lyrics for language learners- Preply employed a three-part methodology.

First, they selected 158 artists from global popularity charts and gathered the lyrics from their 25 most popular songs.

Next, for each artist, the research measured three core linguistic metrics:

• Vocabulary Accessibility: The percentage of words an artist uses from the 1,000 most common English words. A higher percentage indicates a more accessible language.
• Vocabulary Rarity: The average frequency rank of each unique word within a vast text corpus. A lower average rank suggests more common vocabulary.
• Vocabulary Difficulty: The average proficiency level (A1-C2) assigned to words by the Oxford English Dictionary. A lower average level signifies easier vocabulary.

Finally, Preply calculated the LDQ by normalising these three metrics to a common scale, ensuring that a higher score consistently equated to "easier" language. These adjusted scores were then averaged and scaled to a final score from 1 to 100, with a higher LDQ indicating greater linguistic accessibility.

Which musicians are the easiest to learn English from?

It would appear that the more ‘genteel’ the work, the easier it is for non-English language speakers to pick up some of our vocabulary. British indie group Keane tops the list, with a language difficulty quotient of only 89.78, followed by 3 Doors Down (87.52) and Fleetwood Mac in third with a quotient of 87.16.

The top ten least complex musicians to learn English from

1. Keane
2. 3 Doors Down
3. Fleetwood Mac
4. Tears for Fears
5. Gotye
6. A-ha
7. PinkPantheress
8. Empire of the Sun
9. Lynyrd Skynyrd
10. Jimin (BTS)

Which musicians are the most difficult to learn English from?

Understandably, there are a lot of hip-hop artists whose vernacular at times is incredible, if you can only catch what they are saying.

Topping the complex artists to learn from list is Eminem, with his rapid-fire verses including those found on ‘Rap God’ sending him to the top of the list with a quotient of 9.25, followed by Doechii (18.18) and Playboi Carti rounding out the top three with a quotient of 18.74.

The top ten most complex musicians to learn English from

1. Eminem
2. Doechii
3. Playboi Carti
4. Kendrick Lamar
5. GloRilla
6. Tyler, The Creator
7. Macklemore
8. BigXthaPug
9. Travis Scott
10. J. Cole

Have you learned a foreign language through just listening to music in that musician’s native tongue? Or have you learned English through another set of musicians previously? Let us know your musical education by leaving a comment down below.