eli5: Despite both just being “sounds”, why does a melody of a foreign songs is so much easier to remember/recall than the foreign lyrics?

Question

eli5: Despite both just being “sounds”, why does a melody of a foreign songs is so much easier to remember/recall than the foreign lyrics?

In: Biology

Answer 1

Speech is *much* more complex than a simple (or even not-so-simple) musical melody. Remembering words when you can’t speak the language involves just memorizing the phonemes that it’s composed of. You might be able to do that for a couple of words, but not for multitudes of full sentences.