Pitch Accent - Reasons to Start Learning

Yomichan

https://foosoft.net/projects/yomichan/

apple dictionary. Those numbers are tones.

54

Hope it helps :hugs:

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To explain further, MacFinch is right, the number represents the pitch information of the word.

The number represents how many moras are spoken prior to the pitch drop. A mora is basically a syllable, but more specific. In particular, ふりょう has three mora (ふ•りょ•う) and しゅっぱつ has four (しゅ•っ•ぱ•つ).

In MacFinch’s image, the number 0 means there is no pitch drop (and hence it is 平板) whereas the number 2 means the drop happens after ろ (and hence it is 中高). So the fact that there are two numbers means that it could be pronounced either one of those two ways.

A lot of J-J dictionaries (like weblio) have this information. It’s harder to find in J-E dicts. I personally use Android, and the Android version of the Takoboto dictionary has pitch information, but it’s not available for iPhone.

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That’s explanations from dictionary. I don’t know if you can read it. I can’t xD

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I minored in Japanese in college. I took three years of high school Japanese and two years of college Japanese. That was a little over a decade ago, and I’ve maintained my Japanese at the hobby level since then.

If there’s one thing I wish my teachers had done differently, it’s taking a break from grammar and vocab and teaching us pitch accent and phonology (such as how Japanese people really pronounce ん).

Even after all those years of Japanese studying, I’d talk to native speakers and unless the sentence was like 「XはYです。」, they had no idea what I was saying. I never once learned about this topic in school and it turned out to be the most important thing about actually communicating with live humans!

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I’d love to learn pitch accent. I’ve always struggled with replicating the correct sounds while learning other languages in the past so I know that won’t be easy for me and I’m a bit unsure on how to start learning it. Do I look up (random?) words on forvo and try to shadow? And how do I manage to get a study routine? Does anyone have any tips for that?

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When I surrounded myself to @NickavGnaro to save myself the pain of constantly being remind how important it is even when speak about whether or not blond girls are more pretty, he ordered me to watch those xD



and said:

and top of that he recommended to add dictionary of pitch accent to my yomichan

hope it helps :hugs:

Edit:
He believes the looks of a girl is not important. Her pitch accent is :stuck_out_tongue:

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I used to have a deck for my Chinese tone learning but I don’t need one for Japanese so I never made one. Anyway, I have made a sample Japanese pitch accent deck:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/boc909bptqoyuj0/Pitch_accent_sample.apkg/file

Using forvo you would

  • Look for minimal pairs (basically the same sound except different in pitch accent)
  • Download the file, put it in the deck and (optionally) stitch them together like in the sample deck (very easy with free software like audacity).
  • Imo, it’s not necessary or even advisory to follow anki scheduling of for something like this. I would just reset the deck as many times as you like and do it as many times as you like. Shadowing the cards if you feel like it. It’s just I don’t know any card making software as powerful as anki so I just use it.
  • Some small tips like using the “r” hotkey to replay audio in anki. There’s an option to put the cards in random order in Anki as well.

Edit: for more complex patterns not on forvo, you might try to use google translate’s text to speech or you would have to download youtube videos teaching pitch accent, convert and edit the audio yourself.

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Btw: is there any app that helps you train yourself to hear the difference? Something for long and short sound would be great too, since I still straggle with that one when they speak fast. Something that give you a sound and ask which pitch it is, and makes it slowly harder and harder.

Since I promised to invest 1-3h into it, I would love to make it the proper way. :hugs:

I know there is no hope for me to be able to say it properly, but at least I can hear it may be (although my music teacher always ask me to shut up because he couldn’t handle how off I am with tones, and I still don’t understand his point so there is not much hope here as well…).

Edit:
Nobody has an input or any opinion at all about this?

Yeah, that Aizuchi video is really interesting, thanks for bringing it up!

I already knew that in Japanese, you need to constantly be reaffirming that you are paying attention to the speaker, but I didn’t know that the speaker also plays in a role in signaling when the other person should step in by lowering their pitch. So I guess that’s something to consider: if you’re seeing the other person isn’t butting in frequently, it’s probably that you’re not giving them the signals for when they can say そうか or はい, etc. Also, it’s good to be paying attention to when one is receiving these signals and actually act on them to avoid being perceived as the cold gaijin…

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Blond girls? Why do you think I’m learning Japanese?

By the way, I’m thinking of making a short video on getting started with pitch accent studies if there’s enough demand for it and you all think it would be helpful. I’ll go over moras, interpreting pitch accent information from J-J dictionaries, how to start learning how to discern the pitches, setting up tools for pitch accent information, as well as attempt pronouncing some words (so feel free to give me feedback!) for practice.

Let me know if you all think that would be helpful!

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If that is something you are passioned about there is not point asking us. You will for you learn a lot during the process of making it. I will watch it for sure.

I figured perfect pitch is more important xD But “gustibus est non disputandum” (“taste is not debatable”).

Btw: I am shocked you have fellen in that trap xD

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Those communication techniques are definitely important to familiarize yourself with and can make a difference. The Aizuchi is a habit I picked up in my studies so much so that it slips into my English sometimes. When you learn the communication techniques specific to a language/culture you kinda take on a new, slightly different persona. I did a study abroad in Nagoya and when I came back my sister kept laughing at me because I had gotten into the habit of bowing to people when I walked in front of them. I’ve even (to my great embarrassment and shame) thrown out an unironic 「日本語上手!」 to a beginner learner. :woman_facepalming:

To bring it back to pitch accent, another experience I had was with an ESL learner I was helping who was trying convey a specific word to me. They repeated it multiple times and even defined it: the people walking on the sidewalk next to the road. And yet I still was at a loss for what they were trying to say. It took me several minutes to realize they were saying ‘pedestrian’. They were saying it correctly, but the stress was off. I remember this clearly because I felt so bad that I couldn’t understand what they were saying.

I’m not a native Japanese speaker, so I can’t say if that experience is similar to trying to understand a non-native speaker making a pitch accent mistakes. There definitely are Japanese people out there who say you don’t need to worry about pitch accent, that they can understand through context. However, I feel like sometimes they say it in order to not discourage people from learning Japanese if they find pitch accent intimidating. Also, as most people are aware, Japanese people are also prone to the aforementioned 「日本語上手!」 and 「お箸上手!」. Some Japanese people I have talked to are just impressed and honored that you are learning Japanese and because of that are willing to overlook a lot of mistakes.

In the end it’s just one part of the language, but the more aspects of Japanese you attempt to learn, the better you can communicate.

Accents are really only thing I’m good at when it comes to foreign languages though, so maybe I’m biased ((´∀`)) (ps. so excited I figured out how to do these emojis)

also, sorry I’m so long winded :stuck_out_tongue:

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I think people are overreacting to this. If you would say something to me even in most broken Polish and I could somehow get what you are trying to say I would be impress as hell. And I am not polite person really, and still I would probably say that you polish is impressive. Far above my expectations. :hugs:

Maybe as people that do not try to learn language they just don’t think from that perspective? If you can somehow communicate it is impressive achievement on it own isn’t it?

It is not that way in English since everybody just assume you have to know it or else xD but I still heard “Your english is better than my polish” every single time said I am sorry for not being clear enough.

Do we really expect them to say that they don’t think you will write haiku any time soon? xD

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I guess it feels kind of condescending? Idk. I feel like with Japanese though you sometimes get the good old 「日本語上手!」even for saying something like「私は○○です」. It definitely has taken on a particular meaning in the Japanese learning community. You do hear it a lot though, probably because Japanese people are surprised to meet a non-Asian person learning Japanese. I don’t think it’s ever said with ill intent.

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I’m not sure if this will help anyone else, but here’s the format that I use for each of my Japanese words in my Anki deck. I copy-paste the meaning from Jisho. I get the kanji meanings from WaniKani. Then I get the sound from OJAD. I haven’t figured out a good use for the tags yet (I used to write parts of speech in there but I’d never actually use it).

So far, it’s worked pretty well for me.

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Proper answer is ありがとう!まだまだじゃないですね or something like this, isn’t it? (i don’t study to talk yet, reading is my goal for now so it can be wrong as hell). So it looks like polite stuff to me. If you say to me: “Good morning” i don’t start to think if it really good morning or bad one and you are being rude xD

holly moly. I just click plus on Yomichan xD

I’m well versed in the まだまだです :laughing:
I don’t know if anyone actually thinks its rude, just incorrect (as in I’m not actually 上手)

@Brand_S
I’m using the MIA addon (I think it might be migaku now?)
It colors the words according to their pitch accent. I’ve found it really helpful

a, you right. I don’t know why I added じゃない. Probably misremembered anime xD

But I will need to abuse that for a year or two at least:

And to be honest I never ever even once have been corrected without begging by British person, except on the internet but I don’t know why it only happens when I say something they don’t agree with xD

I was even testing this by making future tense in place of past tense and reverse, and nothing…

Thinking about it… If you would try learn Polish and have me as a bench mark I would be a little bit offended (it would be more hilarious though). Your broken Polish would be 上手 to me, and your assertion you can ever be as good at polish I am (I am pretty damn good. Better than most of polish people) would be just funny to me. I would give you some benefit of the doubt only if you are native speaker of Russian or something like that and aim at it for years. Or already know 4+ languages. If you can do it you can do it. But I need a prove to believe it.

So maybe we are just not modest to then?

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Pitch accent seems to have the same level of importance as stress in Russian (maybe Polish?). Yes, while there is a good amount of situations where changing it can change the meaning of words/phrases, I think it should be the least of your worries when studying Japanese. You should recognize that it exists and maybe try to remember the patterns while you are studying, but nothing more before you achieve fluency, otherwise it’s just holding you back from you main goal.

Just from my experience when talking to non-native speakers as a native - most mistakes that people make are not stress related and in any case you can easily figure out what they tried to say.

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