Poetry in a foreign language is a fantastic tool for students at all levels

Poetry allows authors to experiment with traditional grammatical norms and generally break language conventions a little—or a lot. By seeing how a language's speakers have crafted and juggled its syllables and words into lines and stanzas, you can learn a lot about that language. Poetry comes in a wide variety of languages and formats. The straightforward haiku from Japan and the sonnet (or sonetto), which has its roots in Italy, are two of the most well-known forms outside of the English language. And other people think that the name of the limerick comes from the Irish town with the same name. Poetry has always existed wherever there have been languages.

There are a few reasons why reading and producing foreign language poetry is a no-brainer if you seek a guaranteed approach to cement your language learning. 

Why Poetry in a Foreign Language Is Effective as a Learning Tool

Poetry is an art form that encompasses a wide range of genres and styles; therefore, generalizing about it would be unfair to the structure. But poetry has some universal qualities that make it an excellent instrument for creatively learning a new language across languages.

The fact that a poem is frequently less dense and wordy than a paragraph from a book distinguishes it most from other types of writing. Comparing and analyzing a poem to committing to reading a chapter in a language you are still learning can be more manageable. A daily little poem is far simpler to inspire you than a 500-page behemoth of a book that you dread starting because you know you'll never finish.

Poems are an excellent way to connect with the cultural history of the people who created them and the locations they came from, just like novels, short tales, and other literary works. Poets are among the most well-known authors in many different languages. Consider the poets Federico Garca Lorca from Spain and Alexander Pushkin from Russia, who capture the spirit of their nations in their different eras. Local colloquialisms, specialized context-specific terminology, historical references, and vocabulary are just a few examples of how authors subtly or overtly incorporate the tales of their own countries into foreign language poetry. 

What Poems Tell Us About Different Languages

There are many good reasons to use poems when discussing the distinctive features of the language you're studying. 

One benefit of poetry is that it can help you tune into the quirks of a language's sound system. Poems, by extension, are excellent ways to master a foreign language. They could be less musical because they are printed on a page or are typically recited without musical accompaniment. However, they can still be just as lyrical and melodic, if not more so. Poets frequently employ alliteration (the recurrence of the same sound in different contexts), meter, and rhyme among the literary strategies to accentuate the most beautiful or noteworthy sounds a language offers. 

You are compelled to practice your pronunciation if you read poetry in a foreign language aloud. Reading anything aloud will improve your pronunciation, whether rolling the Spanish r or producing the notoriously harsh German ch. There is also a case for the notion that including poetic qualities like rhyme and meter can make the sounds more memorable.

Poems with a formal verse structure can teach us a lot about language grammar (how individual words can be put together to make sentences), where the stress is placed on different syllables of different phrases, which words rhyme and which don't. If you're ready to seek it, poetry contains much helpful information about language structure.

More Than Is Obvious

You may only be attempting to analyze some poems you read to the level of The Dead Poets Society. It would be tiresome. But you're undoubtedly aware that there's frequently more buried between the lines than you can see when it comes to the meaning of a particular piece. There are many hidden meanings in poetry. Deciphering what is encoded within them is a draw to reading them.

As you acquire a new tongue, adding a foreign language creates a fantastic multi-layer puzzle for brain exercise. Imagine it as translating, but twice as much. Before translating to your native language, you must parse through the poem to test your vocabulary in your new language. Then, among other literary devices, you must take the time to analyze the hidden meanings in metaphors, similes, allusions, euphemisms, and allegories. Oh, my Captain, oh! If you're up to the challenge, that's a severe literary storm to weather. Even in your native language, poetry encourages careful reading because you'd probably miss the underlying point or subject if you glanced through it. It's lovely to enable you to concentrate on your new language because of this.