Listening to The Beatles and liking English was totally uncool in France when I was a teenager. But it had other advantages. Have you ever realised how many idioms, and grammar rules are illustrated in Beatles songs? I did have English classes at school, yes, but The Beatles taught me real, spoken English.
Learning a language through music is very effective : you start humming a melody you like, then you get down to the words and before you know it, you can sing the song off by heart.
The Beatles were experts in creating catchy songs, the type that easily gives you ‘earworms’. Listening to them non-stop over a few years taught me more English than school and its boring approach ever did.
Do you realise that when you’re singing When I’m Sixty Four you’re actually illustrating the fact that you should use the present tense after ‘when’ ? (In French you use the future as in Quand j’aurai 64 ans). There are tons of example like this one but not for today’s post.
As a tribute to The Beatles, who made me love English and the British sense of humour, I have decided to do a World Tour of Beatles ukulele covers, sorted chronologically by Album. Going through the whole Beatles discography in one post is a bit too much so this first post will focus on the years 1963 and 1964.
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