I still can’t understand music.

Together with understanding native speakers talking to each other, this is the other ability that requires a really high level of the language. What should comfort you the most is that many times we don’t even understand the lyrics of some songs in our own native language. And for most songs there are usually a few sentences or words that we can’t figure out. In some cases you may have been singing the wrong lyrics for years. Some obvious reasons for not being able to understand lyrics are fast singing and loud instruments that overpower the singing voice. But there are also a few linguistic reasons that most people haven't considered:\n\nSince singing follows the rhythm and the pitch of the melody, a lot of information present in normal speech is lost, like syllable stress, and sentence rhythm and intonation.\nSong lyrics are mostly devoid of context. Lyrics just begin, and we don’t know who is talking to who, in what situation, for what reason, in what tone, etc. This is inherent to lyrics and poetry.\nAnd finally, but probably the most important, is that lyrics tend to use “beautiful” language. Many lyrics consist of uncommon, poetic, abstract words and figurative meanings. Sometimes with obscure references to the life of the artist. For native speakers, even wen we can understand the words, it can be hard to figure out what the meaning actually is.\n\nIt’s important to know that understanding song lyrics is one of the hardest things that you can do in a foreign language, and that many people take a long time to get there, or never do. Since the variety of vocabulary used can be so large, there are not many things that we can recommend doing if you want to specifically get better at understanding lyrics, other than:\n\nContinue to get better at the language in general.\nRead the lyrics of the songs that you like. There can be quite an overlap in the vocabulary used between songs in the same genre, so reading lyrics of a few songs in your favorite genres can help you understand other songs.