"Not my mother tongue" play list

I love this! I could talk about this all day but here are a few I can’t get enough of:

Amharic: Tenanekegn - Teddy Afro


Teddy Afro is just the absolute best and this is a real bop. Although I just learned that despite the happy sound it means “Tears welled up in my eyes” :sob: be careful if you listen to it, you’ll be singing it all day.

French: Au Bord de la Fontaine - Le Vent du Nord


J’adore le Québec et le français québécois!

Portuguese: Desfado - Ana Moura


Great take on Fado music lamenting a lack of lamentations :laughing:

Spanish: El Gustito - Rick Trevino


Tejano music, showing some of the mutual influence music has had on either side of the US-México border.
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Always hard to decide when it comes to favorites. Here are some of my top picks:

Polish - Swiernalis - Blizny

German - Eisbrecher - Zwischen uns

Spanish - Green Car Motel - Destino De Abril

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Funny enough I sorted my songs in my Spotify according to languages and not genres. Here are my favourites:

English: Enya - One By One
Arabic: Iwan - Ya 100 Nawart
Russian: Михаил Боярский - Зеленоглазое такси
German: Namika - Lieblingsmensch
Spanish: Juanes - La Camisa Negra
Swedish: Magnus Carlsson - Möt mig i Gamla Stan
Lithuanian: Jurga - Nebijok

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Kirundi Français

Afrikaans

Dutch

Limburgish

Frisian

French

Italian

Plattdüütsch

Kölsch

Bavarian

Austrian

Schwyzerdütsch

Luxembourgish

Sorabe (Sorbisch)

Interlingua

Toki Pona

Esperanto

Papiamento

Haitian

Zulu

Occitan

Corsu

Catalan

Hebrew

Yiddish

Arabic

Wolof

Hausa

Khoisan

Swahili

Russian

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I love this thread! I always thought I was weird for listening to music I could not understand.

But here are a few of my favorites:

Greek (I think)
Angelina Dimitriou / Margarites magapay

Moroccan Arabic
Babylone Zina Official Music Video

German
Xavier Naidoo - Bitte hör nicht auf zu Träumen

Xavier Naidoo - Ich kenne nichts (Das so schön ist wie du) [Official Video]

Revolverheld - Halt dich an mir fest

Persian
Mohsen Yeganeh - Behet Ghol Midam ( I promise you )

Persian
Evan Band - Alijenab - Live in Concert ( ایوان بند - عالیجناب - اجرای زنده ی )

Spanish
juan luis guerra te regalo una rosa (letra)

Spanish
Vanesa Martín - No te pude retener.

Piano fusion between Arabic and English (Absolutely love this one!)
Dance Monkey (IDT) & بين العصر والمغرب MashUp - Maan Hamadeh

Hindi
Kuch Kuch Hota Hai Full Video

Italian
Andrea Bocelli ft Giorgia - Vivo Per Lei (Lyrics)

French
Notre Dame de Paris Belle-Paroles

Lara Fabian - JE SUIS MALADE+TESTO

Ok I need to stop now… my list is endless LOL

Zeina

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I don’t have a whole playlist just now, but I’ll put in a plug for anything by Alabina, with Spanish & Arabic together. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Od9iPnySNMs

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I love Mohsen Yeganeh’s songs too!

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I’ve been learning the beautiful Malagasy language these past few weeks. It’s an Indonesian language reshaped by East African Bantu phonology!
DALVIS Tsisy probl’M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlVN-3GgyZo

Standard Uzbek is pretty much in the same boat, a Turkic language reshaped by Persian phonology. A bit surreal hearing a Turkic language that breaks all the vowel harmony rules!
Botir Qodirov va Munisa Risayeva Dema dema https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZdrRmIN_uw

This one’s one of my favourite Maltese songs: The Travellers Sempliċità https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8x0d__8-iOI

And Volga Tatar music reminds me of Northern Chinese folk melodies mixed with Japanese enka! Саида Мухамедзянова Su buylap https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsTT7k4JUi8

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I know - those guitar tunes he plays are from another planet (in a good way :joy:)

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Lau teilatu gainean / ilardia erdian / eta zuuuu / haruntz begira… !!! (Itoiz - Lau Teilatu)

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I struggle to pick a favorite song especially with Arabic and Turkish, as well as picking the best version or cover. Here are couple of songs from my Russian playlist:

Thank you all

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No one has mentioned Brazilian Portuguese yet, so here are just three of so, so many:

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I don’t speak Norwegian but really liked Gåte. Thanks.

I’ll probably never manage to listen to all of the songs here, but I kind of skimmed through and listened to a lot of great stuff. Especially, remember the song from Rwanda about HIV (thanks @Lim) and the Indian Folk Metal (thanks @Rachel) about mental illness now. Those were really outstanding.
@Zeina-AR-DE-FR-EN I think I have a similar taste to yours.
@HeatherS I’m a huge fan of Turkish music and didn’t know Koray Avci, yet. Thanks for this.

I know the list is called “Not my mother tongue” but I really wanted to share a couple of songs that somewhat have a meaning for me and/or are in a tongue I have a more personal relationship with.

My mother tongue(s):
Kölsch (Colognian) certainly hasn’t come up, yet… Oh, wait, I just saw that @Ron posted one as well. Anyways, this group is quite famous and they have a lot of party songs. This is one of their more serious songs. I listened to this on repeat for a while. German speakers can take this as a challenge to see how much they can understand. You can look the lyrics up here: https://www.songtextemania.com/ich_jonn_kapott_songtext_kasalla.html

Kölsch: Kasalla - Ich jonn kapott

This is my favorite German singer and the lyrics of this lovely little tune are something I can really relate to.

German: Joy Denalane - Zuhause

My home’s mother tongue:
This anti-war song is a classic and one of the first singer-songwriter songs from Madrid that I listened to. If you watch from the beginning, he also explains how he first wrote the song.

Spanish: Ismael Serrano - Papá, cuéntame otra vez

My family’s roots’ mother tongue:
I don’t speak Quechua at all but my son’s grandparents speak it as a second mother tongue and still proudly keep it alive in the family.

Quechua: Kjarkas - Munasquichay

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Great choices Miri! Thanks for sharing :smiley:

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I adore Kurdish one😍thankkkk youuuu

Not anymore i guess @SaraKurd :slight_smile: Hi from Riha (Şanlıurfa, Turkey) :slight_smile:

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Hello :blush: nice to meat youuu

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I’ve been following this awesome thread for a while and it definitely expanded my multilingual playlists!
Here are some of my favourites that I don’t think have been shared yet:

Spanish: Imposible by Luis Fonsi and Ozuna https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=De4FqIkvHX0
(I have toooo many favourite songs in Spanish but I chose this one because it has some great examples of the subjunctive and imperative moods hehe)

French: Danser by Arcadian https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vig5casjm0Q
(again too many favourites in French but it’s relevant to our world right now + easy to understand)

Polish: Ściernisko (Remix) by Golec uOrkiestra https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY40kz2S608
(a fun remix on a classic song - also Polish is technically my mother tongue but shhhh)

European/African Portuguese: Te Amo by Calema https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6XkNdHbMPE
(became famous a few days ago because of a video by Ronaldo but all Calema songs are great)

Brazilian Portuguese: Oi by Lagum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsbvyRXpNmE
Cape Verdean Creole: Preparado by Rapaz 100 Juiz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HsVdohBPk8
Moroccan Arabic: lm3allem by Saad Lamjarred https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Fwf45pIAtM
Quechua: Tusuykusun by Damaris https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_zT6FwMLvI
Russian: Сумецкая by Otava Yo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JQ0xnJyb0A
Swahili: Moyo Mashine by Ben Pol https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyhTV1dwsok
Uzbek: Kun Tun by Ziyoda https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIuqkMnUn-s

I hope you guys enjoy them :slight_smile:

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My favourite thread so far!

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