4.08.2010

Songs in other languages

Today I decided to hook up the iPod while driving home from work. "Dota" by Basshunter popped up, and despite this song being in Swedish, well, I can pretty much sing along with it just fine as if I knew Swedish! (I don't). Thinking how it's funny that we can memorize an entire song in a different language and sing along with it, I started thinking about what other songs I can sing along to in foreign languages. Rammstein is a German metal band that I can pretty much sing along with their songs that I actually listen to. Same with a few songs in French (but okay, I took French for a few years, but still...). I also know the first couple Bleach intros as well, which are all in Japanese!

Do I actually know what I'm saying?

The Basshunter ones, yes - because the Youtube videos have subtitles.
Rammstein - only 2 songs
French - yes, but only cuz I took a class where the teacher gave us lyrics to them and we could translate
The Bleach themes - some but again, they have subtitles on (if I have a choice, I watch anime subbed, not dubbed).

Here's a few I thought I'd share:

Swedish


Now this is the original version of the song, put out about 5 years ago. Basshunter became huge in the gaming culture due to this song and his other big hit, Boten Anna, as Dota is referring to sitting in the Ventrilo voicechat program and play the Dota map on Warcraft 3. Boten Anna is about a chat bot named Anna. Since the release of Basshunter's debut album though, he was popular in Europe, and found a following with these songs over here in the US. By the time he started work on his 2nd album he had a lot of US fans and thought it would be nice to make "Americanized" versions of both Dota and Boten Anna, turning them into cheesy dance love songs (Dota is now "All I Ever Wanted" and Boten Anna is now "Now You're Gone"). While both are nice, I much prefer the originals, in their intended Swedish!

German


I thought about posting the Lego versions of Rammstein's videos, but you'd probably be laughing too hard to actually hear the song.

French



This one is hilarious - it's the story of the incredible duel between an onion and a tissue!

Japanese

The first Bleach intro - "Asterisk" by Orange Range. Sorry for the lack of subtitles on this one - it was the better quality version of the song I could find. If you like animes though, I definitely recommend checking out Bleach. I got through the Bounto arc (which was filler, as none of it was in the original manga) which is around episode 100, but haven't really watched since then, as my ex and I used to watch it together and it just felt kinda weird. It's been long enough, maybe I'll get back in the habit.

Are there any foreign songs you often find yourself sing along with, despite not really knowing the lyrics or normally being able to speak the language?

3 comments:

  1. I love songs in different languages too. I have memorize Japanese song when i was in Japan for one year and it's cool.

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  2. I learned to sing a song about the months of the year in french.

    I also once attempted to learn "Hey Mickey" in spanish.. not sure why.. it was on the cd. I dont think i still remember any :(

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  3. There's this Icelandic rap group called Quarashi and they had one song on their CD that was entirely in Icelandic and I somehow learned all the words to it. I have no idea what the song is about but if I ever go to Iceland I'm going to try out some of the phrases on the locals and see what happens.

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What's your thoughts?