I listen to a lot of Japanese songs and also sing a lot of karaoke in Japanese, which has helped considerably with my reading skills and how fast I can read hiragana/katakana.
However, I've heard Japanese songs may not be the best idea to practice speaking/pronunciation since the Japanese used in songs can be very different from spoken Japanese. For example, I've noticed that when もっと appears in songs, it's pronounced more like もおっと since an extra syllable has to be added. Things like that.
The most concerning I've heard though is that apparently, the pitch/melody of a song can override the actual pitch of that word, meaning that if I practice using song lyrics too much then I may end up pronouncing words wrong. Is shadowing using songs a bad idea then?
I'm asking because I was watching an Arashi dance tutorial and realized that the way the dance tutor in the video sings along to the lyrics at a slow pace was incredibly helpful and useful since I was able to fully listen to the entire sound at a slow pace and repeat it accordingly. However, if it only encourages the wrong pronunciation, then I'll have to find something else.
For reference, my Japanese music taste mainly consists of pop/idol songs from artists such as Nogizaka46, AKB48, Yoasobi, Fujii Kaze, but also a bunch of other artists with more energetic, fast-paced songs.
Thank you in advance!
by Nabaseito