Basta tararear

16:29 Feb 7, 2017 

Both 'canturrear/tararear' translate as "hum" in English. That's all I was saying, in agreement with the dictionary entry cited below.

15:32 Feb 7, 2017 

Me parece que el "problema" está en el texto original. Lo correcto sería cantar o canturrear, porque sólo así se usaría la letra y se podría retener en la memoria. Al tararear, sólo se retiene la melodía. Aquí el problema es si se reemplaza "tararear" por lo que corresponde en inglés y se coloca "sing" o hasta "croon", eso dependerá del contexto...

10:22 Feb 7, 2017 

I didn't actually say that you can't hum lyrics; I said you can't "tararear" lyrics, because "tararear" means replacing the lyrics with "ta-ra". Humming with lyrics is "canturrear".

10:20 Feb 7, 2017 

If you google "humming the words to" you'll find it's very common. I think we use "hum" for almost any kind of intoning a song to yourself, melody with or without words, lips open or closed.

10:12 Feb 7, 2017 

It depends on how you define humming. Murmuring lyrics sotto voce comes under the overall heading of humming chez moi. Otherwise, what would we call it?

22:44 Feb 6, 2017 

But Robin's point is still valid: you can't "tararear" lyrics, only melodies, because tararear means replacing the lyrics with "la-la"-type nonsense syllables. The writer really meant "canturrear", I think.

22:40 Feb 6, 2017 

It's perfectly true that strictly speaking humming is with the mouth closed (a buzz) and tararear is with the mouth (slightly) open ("cantar entre dientes y sin articular palabras", DRAE). Tararear is to "ta-ra", or "to la-la-la", as we would be more likely to say. But we don't say it very often, and in practice humming is the most idiomatic equivalent. Someone in the thread Jane's referred to cites Winnie the Pooh:

"and now he was humming it right through, properly. It went like this:
Tra-la-la, tra-la-la,
Tra-la-la, tra-la-la,
Rum-tum-tiddle-um-tum.
Tiddle-iddle, tiddle-iddle,
Tiddle-iddle, tiddle-iddle,
Rum-tum-tum-tiddle-um."

That is precisely "tararear".

18:36 Feb 6, 2017 

In particular the dictionary entry: HUM: intransitive verb - tararear, canturrear. As the old joke says, "if you don't know the words to this song, just take off your shoes and hum"...

18:18 Feb 6, 2017 

Interesting discussion here of the difference between canturrear and tararear https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/canturrear-y-tararea...