I was wondering what you all considered the best approach for learning songs, if you do so. For me, listening to Japanese music is definitely very motivating and has helped me pick up a lot of new words - but when it comes to actually figuring out what they mean, the problem is, they're far too hard. I might get a rough idea once I've seen a translation, but I feel I can't fully understand most of the time.

I read the post on AJATT about learning songs:
http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blo...ent-method
and noticed it didn't actually mention understanding (though I imagine the intention probably was that you should understand it). I wondered how it would work to just put the lyrics to the clip in kanji/kana on the front of a SRS card, and the clip and the rest of the lyrics on the back, the task only being to sing or read it and nothing else. I'd put a definition of any unfamiliar words on the back (probably just go with putting verbs in dictionary form), so would almost certainly wind up picking them up. Might also want to include translated lyrics, but that's the part I'm least sure about. So essentially learning the song itself by rote, but with the added bonus of picking up a few extra words, which is what I most need right now (and hopefully, they'd start to make more sense eventually anyway). Plus, if I could sing more Japanese songs, I guess I could always use them for Japanese exposure even at times when I'd otherwise have no, or no easy, access to Japanese material (sing them to myself and annoy everyone, hah).

What do you think? Bad idea, will be more trouble and confusion than it's worth, or could it be Ok? What programs do you use to split a song up, for those who add them to their SRS? I wasn't happy with splitting up a song into predefined lengths, myself, preferred to split manually at the end of a line.

To be honest, I think its not necessary to SRS songs. SRS helps to get something into your long term memory. For something like a song, the simple fact of listening to it a lot and singing along will get it into your short term memory, and you shouldn't have any trouble remembering it until you get tired of the song and stop listening. And at that point, why would you care if you forget the lyrics?

You can usually find either youtube videos with lyrics added on, or some external lyric site that has the music on the same page as the lyrics, so you can easily follow along. Just try singing along while reading the lyrics. Just do a small part at a time. Translate the lyrics into English yourself to try getting a better understanding of it. If you have trouble, look at fan translations for help. Just do a small part at a time, practice until you can sing it without reading. As you sing it, try to picture the meaning in your head.
Pretty soon, you should have an entire song learned.

I agree with Zarxrax - there is no need to SRS song lines if you are going to play them in loop. Sooner or later you will be able to sing your songs as you are listening to them and then just by yourself. There is one condition for this to happen though - you need to understand the vocabulary (and grammar to some extend) so the input is comprehensible. Also, the more lyrics are written in a way the language is spoken the better. If you like rap (I don't), for example, you are lucky. J-pop is so so, but if you are into it, this site has many J-pop lyrics translated.

If you have an iphone or similar device, you can add the lyrics to your mp3 files and display them while you listen. You can find most of the lyrics online in romaji and Japanese.

What I did before I knew enough kanji was to find both the full Japanese version of the lyrics and the romaji version. Then I'd run the romaji version through an online convertor to get a kana only version. Then, I'd add both to my mp3s. That way I could sing along even before knowing the kanji.

If you try this, be sure to edit the romaji file before converting it or you might end up with a bunch of わｓ, おｓ, and　えｓ　when you wanted は, を and へ. A simple text editor like Notepad++ can handle this easily.

I also second the idea of singing along to the videos on youtube. You can find the karaoke versions of the originals (original audio tracks only), original song with karaoke lyrics (vocal tracks present), actual karaoke audio/video and more. Try searching for the song title along with カラオケ. And, beware of video titles with カバー or "by Trixy, Len etc." in them as they are covers sung by amateurs like us.

I see the point about not needing to SRS songs, but honestly I can't even remember English songs, no matter how many times I listen to them, and even if I sing along with them. Literally the only (non nursery rhyme) song I know the lyrics to is 涙があふれた...and that's because I SRSed it. XD

Using カラオケ videos sound like a good (and fun) idea. That site also looks useful, thanks. : )

Well, if you think you need to srs them to remember, certainly do whatever works for you.
I only learned 1 Japanese song so far, it only took me maybe an hour of studying the lyrics (including translating). I certainly can't sing it on my own, but when I listen to it I can mostly sing along, and I can understand all of the lyrics now.