Pitch Accent - Reasons to Start Learning

Japanese
#166

That’s exactly why I used that example! It gives a nice example of where things could go wrong, while also acknowledging that adding more context can help.

If anything, it supports the idea that when you’re a beginner (and hence less able to easily conjure up extra phrases that clarify the context), getting pitch right may actually help you be understood by a larger degree than when you are more advanced and fluent. The irony is that if you get to an advanced and fluent level with really bad pitch, (aside from losing the benefits in comprehension) it seems like you’re a walking contradiction. Why put in the effort to excel in Japanese if you never want to sound polished? On the other hand, if you don’t want to sound polished, then you better pay attention to pitch just so you can be understood!

1 Like
#167

Glad you are so excited about this article! :grin: If you are interested in scientific articles on this (and other) topic, you can search on scholar.google.com. If you don’t already know, it is a search engine dedicated to searching in scientific reviews, proceedings and so on.

2 Likes
#168

I can give you many reasons.First one being that you will not find me walking too often in Japan, or even using Japanese while standing. I will probably be in front of my computer like 99% of times.

Different goal, different roads :hugs:

I will give my last argument and I call it a day since there is not much more to add: have anybody notice I had very hard time to understand and be understood? It would be much easier to sorted out if I would not assume that 99% of the problem is on my English side, and trying to clarify over and over the same points getting irritated in the process. Root of the problem was much simpler but hander to accept (@ljoekelsoey thanks for patience and help with that ): I sometimes sucks are communicating idea to people outside of my culture (polish people) and core interests. Much bigger “frog” to swallow. I could easily avoid this problem if I would be not so fixated on the idea that it has to be English and my English can’t be that bad, so it has to be English and intend of others. I got English and skills necessary to do so (it is even my profession…) but I was to lazy and stubborn to think it through.

I believe it can be pretty good analogy to make a claim similar thing can happen if beginner like me - not yet fully understanding how bad his Japanese is and how polite Japanese people have to be to even begin to understand what he is trying to say - put too much importance on pitch or accent. He can very easily think his pitch is to blame when he could not be wrong more. It just happen to me, and I am not even close to be beginner at English. Pretty much opposite: I was moved to C1+ group in Uni after 30 minute in b2 course and have always been most talkative student always at top of the class … I like reading and read only english so what else to expect? and I work in England for 4 years before that… (I got poor marks on grammar though as I don’t care that much… especially on the internet)

(btw: I often use my english as excuse but 95% of time it is just lazy way to get out of pointless argument with taking most of the blame on myself but not lying I will change my position - my gaijin card let’s call it xD)

If this is not convincing argument then there is no point in my trying again xD

If you find it good enough to consider my position as valid then please change the tittle to one that is not suggesting it is must have kind of thing. Like “why it is worth to give it a try” :hugs:

(btw: I still am of opinion that my english sucks in comparison to my Polish and aspirations with Japanese.)

1 Like
#169

It is less important for you if you don’t care about speaking to people. However, if you never speak to a human, pitch accent may still be helpful for listening comprehension, which is the major “new” argument I wanted to bring forward with this discussion. If you don’t speak, you just have to care about it less, but nonetheless should still care.

I’m not sure that our misunderstandings have been mostly predicated on culture. Surely, people are less willing to entertain your ideas based on how they perceive you, and that was the cause of some misunderstanding, for sure. The same will happen in Japan without proper politeness.

Thinking about it some more, what may have actually been the problem is you assuming that you weren’t properly conveying yourself, and hence repeating the same arguments over and over. If I were to guess, most people understood your points the first time around, but didn’t agree with them for other reasons already laid out before. Then when you brought it up again (because you thought you weren’t communicating your ideas in a way that people can understand), it made you seem stubborn and unwilling to listen, which fed into the politeness issue, which then fed into people not being as willing to extend as much courtesy to your points.

At least, that’s my interpretation of it all. I don’t think I can keep bringing up the same arguments as it’s getting tiring. BUT I will say that I’m glad I motivated you to take up pitch accent studies and not view it as a futile pursuit :blush:. I wish you the best of luck as you continue to study.

EDIT: But I’ll go ahead and change the title to make it more modest anyway, and out of friendship. I still think people should care, obviously. But what everyone does is up to them. All I can do is hope I’ve been persuasive and ultimately ended up helping people

1 Like
#170

As a final addendum, as I kind of want this conversation to die now too (lol), @MacFinch did say numerous times his primary goal is to be able to enjoy Japanese poetry, and it’s hard to argue that in that case pitch accent is not important for him. I’ve a sneaky feeling that as he goes further into the language he’ll want to speak to people but still (^^)

3 Likes
#171

People are annoying unless they are dead. I prefer books for that reason xD

Just to make it clear. It is just joke… I will give my best to try to get the pitch. I don’t see it likely for me to get it, but I will give it my best.

#172

You are far too argumentative to not want to talk to Japanese people hahah

2 Likes
#173

That’s my reasoning as well… I wanted to move in to Japan, but it would made me kill myself, or they would do it for me xD

I love Poland. I can be honest here :hugs:

#174

自殺させられてしまうね。

Sorry, just such a good example of causative-passive. They’ll make you kill yourself

EDIT: BTW, all are 平板 in case anyone was wondering ;). Whole sentence is flat with gradually decreasing pitch but no downstep

3 Likes
#175

After some consideration I have to say you sound like totally objective person without any kind of bias towards pitch, when I am clearly biased a little bit against it :wink:

Let me assure you there is absolutely no reason to even think I may be sarcastic here xD

I like you anyway though… xD

#176

Imagine that you lived in an isolated town with no color where everyone is an artist. One day, you climb up a mountainous wall few people have ever bothered to climb before, and on the other side, you find a more beautiful world, full of color.

Having just begun to enjoy the wonders of art with color, you come back to town to urge everyone to start resistance training so that they too can climb the wall and experience their passion for painting with greater fullness. After all, art without color isn’t able to convey emotions with accuracy, and seeing color can be a great help in deciphering the intended effect of the art you experience.

However, when you come back to share the good news to town, some start training right away, but, as expected, you are met with resistance from other townspeople. Some of them have certain physical conditions that make strength training harder and less effective. Nevertheless, you assure them, if they put in the work, they can in fact get past the boundary and experience the benefits themselves.

A debate starts taking place, but ultimately, you know what you have seen, and you know that an artist without color is severely handicapped. Having finally gotten people to take up resistance training, you ultimately are called out for your bias.

That is how that just felt.

1 Like
#177

I fully support your effort. It is poetic to me even that you find it that important. Keep doing what you do and let me know when you will about to stop: It will be a pleasure to slap you hard back into yourself xD

1 Like
#178

Here is a small sample from Kansai dialect handbook I saw on amazon, thought it would be fun to share here.

10%20PM
Screen Shot 2021-01-27 at 7.57.10 PM.jpg1192×810 176 KB

I found this other one which has a release date of 2022 that will have 600 pages of dialect goodies, yum! Here are the chapter layouts:

4 Likes
#179

Wow! That dialect handbook, that’s cutting edge material there! Kinda expensive though. I wonder if I can get it via my university

3 Likes
#180

It would be funny if the 関西 tonal guide said: just flip all 関東 平板 to 頭高 and vice-versus… it sometimes feels like decisions in the two regions get made in this way. Old tensions from when 徳川 moved the capital to Tokyo I suppose…

2 Likes
#181

Well. Dialect are often to make other people of the nation know you will not surrender to their views. I know Scottish people able to speak clearly to me, by always using hard Scottish accent when speaking we people claiming “we are not english or scottish, we are brittish”. They seems to not agree…

Same in Poland. I don’t see how local patriotism could work different in Japan. They are still human after all :hugs:

2 Likes
#182

Btw: it is actually a plot point in Hajime no Ippo xD

#183

That is essentially the attitude of Osaka, do the opposite of Tokyo cos f**k them. The only part of Japan where they stand on the right and walk on the left of escalators. :face_with_monocle:

I jest (sort of), but especially in this respect Kansai-ben is an outlier in that it is almost the opposite of most accents and at the same time is very well known. People from all over Japan will use Kansai slang as well in conversation, なんで/や\ね is a very commonly heard example. If you mix Kansai pitch with “regular” Japanese pitch, it will confuse people

4 Likes
#184

Interesting, but this handbook doesn’t seem to make a distinction between odaka and heiban words.
For example, 橋 and 犬 are odaka while 飴 is heiban.

2 Likes
#185

As far as I understood wiki page that division is not even common to all pitch-accents. You have even one pitch-accent called: no accent (meaning no pitch).

I don’t know if that apply in any way to Kansai dialect.