BuddhaNet is a site where the music featured helps listeners focus, meditate or even just find inner peace to help better themselves in anything that they’re trying to do. Many of these songs do not contain any real lyrics, so you might be wondering how this site can even help you with your language learning. After all, the whole idea of learning languages with music is to listen to natives sing while following along to their lyrics and practice speaking them right?
Not necessarily. And here’s why.
Foreign language immersion isn’t just about listening and speaking. To master learning any language requires taking the time and effort to actually study which does, in fact, require picking up books and reading every now and then. This genre of Buddhist music can be very advantageous to people who have trouble doing this.
In addition to surrounding yourself in a more calming and relaxing environment to help you get some serious studying done, many of the songs featured on this site actually do have words that you can sing (or rather chant) along to. This is definitely a win-win for those of you who want to learn how to speak Chinese—even if the songs don’t have people speaking in them all the time.
To sum it up, this special website has a lot to offer, and all of the songs are available to download too.
Ever wanted to listen to high-quality Chinese music on a trustworthy site? Although this site is a little hard to navigate and the search engine isn’t the greatest, once you get the hang of it Kugou can be very useful to growing your collection of Chinese music.
Know what’s also cool about Kugou? You can watch live musical performances by rookies and famous singers alike in HD through their partner site, Fanxing.
Song to check out: “What Kind of Man – 算什麼男人” (suàn shén me nán rén) by Jay Chou 周杰倫 (zhōu jié lún)
While this site may not be the most exciting visually, there are many advantages to using Ihonhon, or at least keeping the home page bookmarked.
For one, the site is very easy to navigate. Also, if your Chinese reading skills aren’t that fantastic (yet), but you can read English just fine, then you’re in luck as everything is in English.
Song to check out: “Let It Go” (Chinese Version) – 隨它吧” (suí tā ba) by Bella Yao 姚貝娜 (yáo bèi nà)
Among the various sites featured on this list, 5ND is one of the most popular. Not only are all of the songs available for download copyrighted, but the downloading process is quick and painless.
Once you click on a song that interests you, the song will play, but then there is another button that allows you to just download it to your computer or other media device. Pretty simple, right?
Song to check out: “Fairytale – 童話” (tóng huà) by Michael Wong
Now this site is all about music! 9Sky is heavily similar to other Chinese music sites, but what’s really cool about it is that it has songs from decades ago as well as the most current tunes.
What’s more is that many of the songs also come with lyrics and information about the song’s artists. The site’s layout is really eye appealing as well. The font is large and the pages aren’t too cluttered to the point of making newcomers to the site feel overwhelmed.
The only possible downside to this site is that users must first register before they’re able to download any content, but fortunately, registration is free.
Learning Chinese through children’s songs can be very beneficial to your studies. Because these songs are geared towards kids (who are naturally already language learning pros) to teach them how to speak Chinese using simple words, repetition and immersion, Little Dragon Tales can be a great resource for adult learners too.
While you can’t directly download any song tracks from their site, you can view the track titles and follow the links to download their album through iTunes and Amazon.
Song to check out: “Congratulations – 祝贺” (zhù hè) by The Shanghai Restoration Project
Mama Lisa is similar to Little Dragon Tales in terms of the type of Chinese songs with lyrics available for download, but it’s unique in that you can learn how to sing children’s songs in other foreign languages as well.
The site will allow you to pick songs from any country on any continent, so it would be wise to keep this site handy!
Song Example: “A Little School Boy – 读书郎” (dú shū láng)
Like the name of the website suggests, Sing Chinese Songs is where viewers can listen to (and if they’re up for it, sing along to) Chinese songs. If you’d rather just stream songs instead of having to download each and every one, then bookmark this site.
Sometimes downloading things from the Internet (especially for free) can lead to trouble, so Sing Chinese Songs is great for when you just want to sing along to some Chinese tunes without having to worry about whether or not what you’re downloading is actually legal or if what you’re downloading is real or fake, some of which could even lead to viruses. (Don’t worry about the sites featured on this list though, as they are all completely safe and legit.)
Song to check out: “Longing – 渴望” (kĕ wàng) by Mao A Min 毛阿敏 (máo ā mĭn)
am1430.com is the main site of the Chinese radio network program founded in Canada, which contains actual Chinese radio stations that stream songs consistently.
Sadly, you cannot download any music from this site. However, you can definitely use am1430 to expose yourself to various songs that you probably wouldn’t have found otherwise, and then use the sites listed above to find them and download.
Chances are, you’ll find what you’re looking for with at least one of them!
If you’re interested, here’s a schedule of the radio shows featured on this site.
And, if you want to go even further, websites like these aren’t the only way to immerse yourself in Chinese music.
YouTube is a great place to find Chinese music in a variety of different styles and genres. Playlists like this one can be a good way to find songs that you’ll enjoy, and that will help you to practice your listening skills.
To supplement your studies, you could also try a language learning platform such as FluentU.
FluentU takes authentic videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.
You can try FluentU for free for 2 weeks. Check out the website or download the iOS app or Android app.
Now that you have almost two dozen sites to stream and download music from, what are you waiting for? Start boosting your Chinese speaking and listening skills with the above Chinese song downloads.
Good luck, and have fun!
And One More Thing...
If you want to continue learning Chinese with interactive and authentic Chinese content, then you'll love FluentU.
FluentU naturally eases you into learning Chinese language. Native Chinese content comes within reach, and you'll learn Chinese as it's spoken in real life.
FluentU has a wide range of contemporary videos—like dramas, TV shows, commercials and music videos.
FluentU brings these native Chinese videos within reach via interactive captions. You can tap on any word to instantly look it up. All words have carefully written definitions and examples that will help you understand how a word is used. Tap to add words you'd like to review to a vocab list.
FluentU's Learn Mode turns every video into a language learning lesson. You can always swipe left or right to see more examples for the word you're learning.
The best part is that FluentU always keeps track of your vocabulary. It customizes quizzes to focus on areas that need attention and reminds you when it’s time to review what you’ve learned. You have a 100% personalized experience.
Finding a quick, appropriate response during a conversation can be challenging when developing your Chinese speaking skills.
Interjections and rejoinders…
