To me they sound different, but I wouldn’t be able to describe it with sounds going up or down 
the explanations aren’t helping at all. nothing is “higher” or “lower” pitched for me. and I wouldn’t be able to reproduce it with their explanation. same as singing for me ^^ and yeah, i got zero musical education as a kid, too ^^ i even stopped singing as a kid, since everybody was mocking me but now that im all grown up and stuff that’s just fair, everybody who has to hear me sing, deserves to vent via some friendly mocking ^^
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I’m somewhat interested in learning pitch accent but learning Japanese is a large enough mountain as it is already. I’ll get to it when I get to it, and if that’s never then it’s never. I mostly just want to read anyway.
Besides, natives can usually tell what you mean anyway. Even if you can’t get the pitch right between 橋(はし, bridge) and 箸(はし, chopsticks), nobody at the dinner table thinks you asked them to give you a bridge.
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I didnt used to care but then when I started hearing differences I began to learn it. I think my listening comprehension has improved massively also
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But they might think you are edgy if you say haSHIGA 
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Since you live in jp, I’m sure you understand the pitch accent/pronunciation of that example from immersion. If you’re in Tokyo, do you meet someone at iidaBAshi or iidabaSHI?
I assume you are just rage baiting to a certain degree.
Since you are in jp, you can pick up correct pronunciation through immersion. But for many learners that don’t have that level of immersion, purposefully exposing themselves to correct pronunciation will save themselves from the pain of correcting pronunciation later.
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I don’t care much about pitch accent either, it’s something I found out existed only recently and my teacher basically told us not to bother, that it’d come naturally with speaking practice and exposure. She doesn’t complain about my accent (only everything else aha) so it’s probably true.
The entire discussion here has been really interesting to follow tho, it seems pretty rude to dismiss everyone’s lived experience or lack of talent for music / super specific sound details as rage bait.
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I’ve been surprisingly fine with pitch accent?
From the beginning it wasn’t something new or mind-blowing (Italian is similar), so I was able to quickly catch on to it.
I simply listen to the audio every time I learn a new word and replicate it as best as I can.
Sometimes I even guess how a word is pronounced before listening to the audio, and 90% of the time I seem to get the pitch right. So there’s some sort of organised chaos
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I’m just here to say I can’t hear it either. My ears don’t work that way. I have difficulty even hearing things like that in English, much less Japanese, so you aren’t alone.
I’ll also say that while I lived in Japan, if I spoke to people on the phone, they didn’t know I wasn’t native Japanese, so my pronunciation was quite good, so I also think it’s okay to not get it. I’m like you, though. If I pronounce some things with a little bit of an accent, so be it. People understand me just fine.
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Im genuinely not trying to do that 🥲
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TBH, I had no idea people would feel so passionately about this, to the extent of calling me an inconsiderate asshole and a ragebaiter so it has been quite the experience, but I’m also mildly perplexed by how upsetting it is for other learners, since again, Japanese people, when asked, largely don’t mind? I have asked Japanese people point blank whether I should learn it, and was told not to worry.
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Some replies here have been out of line, frankly. I too am a bit surprised by how strongly some people feel about the subject, which is fine, but a small part of them certainly aren’t doing themselves any favour with the way they express it. You’ve endured their comments rather patiently.
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You’re very kind 
I did bring it on myself though with the spicy title, but I think I would have phrased it differently in hindsight if I’d realised to what extent it was a hot issue. I felt confident being a bit silly about it because I didn’t realise people were so serious about it.
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Unfortunately, just about everything is Deadly Serious on the internet. I try not to write anything that might provoke a strong reaction and I try to stay away from controversial topics (and apparently certain aspects of language learning is one of them??) But that’s just me. People kinda scare me, offline and online.
As for pitch accent… I just simply don’t have an opinion, so that’s that!
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I will say though, in a situation where you dropped you chopsticks on a bridge, and if you say you dropped your bridge on the chopsticks, your Japanese might be cooked. Especially if the other person doesn’t understand the concept of context. They may shun you, belittle you, and put you in nihongo jail for eternity.
I thought about that one time while eating a bento at a park while looking at a bridge in the distance. That’s the moment the concept of pitch accent became vividly clear to me.
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I think this is something that people who have never lived here long term especially (generally speaking, always exceptions to any rule) struggle to understand. Yes, there are “correct” pitch accents in regards to 標準後 or specific regional dialects. However, what’s “correct” in Tokyo or a business meeting is not what’s correct in Kyoto among locals having a drink. Using what’s “correct” in either scenario in the opposing context is likely to get you weird looks, even native speakers.
I live in Fukushima, where the regional dialect is widely considered to be “flat”, or in other words many people here don’t have a clue what the “correct” pitch accent for words is, and it’s hardly consistent even between towns. I had students when I was an ALT arguing with each other over pitch accent once after their 国語 class, and a couple kids were visibly struggling to hear the difference themselves (struggling is a strong word, they were all having fun with it and not a single person was upset).
It’s really not that serious lol
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I just avoid talking about sweets on rainy days, and using chopsticks whilst crossing bridges.
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Bro the way I cackled just now HAHA thank you for the laugh
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I just had a thought, but isn’t there way more homophones in Japanese than in English ? I know that a lot of English speakers here are probably natives of another language entirely, but for those who aren’t or speak languages where this isn’t common it might lead to the idea that “Japanese people won’t be able to understand you if you don’t master pitch accent”.
My language has a lot of those and no pitch accent as far as I’m aware, and yet it’s never been an issue. It’s known to be really confusing for beginners tho.
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There’s too much of an obsession amongst language learners with trying to sound like a native speaker. Many of us are not native speakers, and that’s okay. And many Japanese people will know that instantly just by looking at us.
Pitch accent is useful, sure. But it’s pretty low on the priority list for becoming proficient at the language. Pitch accent also varies by region in Japan. IMO Dogen emphasizes the importance of pitch accent because it personally affirms the work that he’s put in to mastering it.
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I didn’t care about it for years (I’ve technically been learning Japanese since like 2013 or something), even after I lived in Japan for years I still never cared about it. I’m starting to care about it now though I think for the following reasons, altho I’m not entirely sure since I’m thinking of these on the spot.
- I can actually hear the pitch accent now, I did literally 0 training during all these years then one day on some drama I was watching they ended up solving a crime due to how some word was pronounced. In the show the characters repeated the different words a few times and it finally clicked that what was different was the pitches.
- I then spent like 2 weeks doing some pitch accent training and added pitch accent graph/numbers to my new anki cards I mine. After those 2 weeks I haven’t studied pitch accent at all, other than when doing anki cards and I sound out the audio of the word I now notice the pitch. Those 2 weeks paid insane dividends because now I hear the pitch everywhere all the time.
- Now that I hear the pitch everywhere….it just makes sense to me to put in some effort to be relatively close to it as much as I can. I’m learning Japanese, and part of Japanese is…pronunciation. I’m just learning the correct pronunciation. When I learned Spanish I also tried to just….pronounce correctly. There’s no difference.
Now with all of that said, despite my 3 points it’s not taking me any effort at all other than the 2 weeks, and also when I do output I’m not consciously caring about pitch at all either, I’m just hoping that by noticing it and repeating it during anki reviews it’ll eventually lead into my output…which I think it has because I’ve noticed I already pronounce certain words differently like 世界.
With that said one of the reasons I didn’t focus on pitch until recently is that I focused a LOT on other IMO wayyyyyyyyy bigger pronunciation issues that English speakers have. And these pay wayyyyyy bigger dividends than pitch when it comes to being understood: long vowels, っ spacing, “r” sound after N etc etc. Saying きて instead of きって during speech is a huge problem so many of us do. Even advanced people when you’re trying to speak quickly and remember words and stuff you end up mispronouncing…just basic things. Definitely spend a lot of time on this at least IMO. I can think of SO many times my Japanese conversation partner looked completely lost at what I had said despite me being sure I used the correct word and it ended up because I pronounced something with just お instead of おう/おお.
With that said I don’t think it would have been a bad idea if say the Genki textbook I did over a decade ago had a basic tiny introduction to pitches, since all these years I woulda got at least some passive gains just from distinguishing them.
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