I appreciate the video's attempt to shine light on this difficult subject, but several points left me wondering about the accuracy of the content provided. Firstly, it says that the pitch of sentences takes on a hiragana "he" shape, but even in the given example "sushi wo takusan tabemashita", the pitch doesn't steadily decline after the "shi" at all, at least not to my ear. While I do agree that the "shi" sound has the highest pitch in the sentence, the remainder of the sentence does not really take on a "he" shape. Secondly, the comparison to English sentences was not very helpful. The second set of sentences are short but each have multiple stress/intonation peaks within a single sentence, which seems to contradict the "he" shape idea. Thirdly, the arrows used for "パーティにいかない" seem misleading. In the question version, the pitch at "ない" first dips down, and then goes back up (rather than being a simple rise). In the statement form of "ない", the speaker in the recording does not drop the pitch as suggested by the arrow, but rather keeps it flat. If someone can provide a convincing rebuttal or explanation, I would be happy to hear them. The main positive takeaways I was able to get from this video were that 1) at the sentence level, pitch accent can differ from what you would expect from strictly looking at individual word-level pitch accent and 2) intonation can make the difference between an interrogative and declarative sentence. The detailed explanations of these points, however, might need some reconsideration. At the very least, the video made me think critically about these issues, so thank you for providing an opportunity for learning.
I agree on most points. However, the apparent disparency described in the first one might simply be because our brains are used to hearing a gradually falling pitch in speech. This causes us to not really hear it, even if the pitch does technically drop.
they should have said that "it trends down" rather than "it is strictly decreasing". So the "high" sound in the 2nd word is lower than the high sound in the first word, and the high sound in the 3rd word is lower than the high sound in the 2nd word and so on. But the patterns within a word still exists somewhat. Although I'm pretty sure there are exceptions, this is a 3-4 min video on a very difficult subject. So they're sticking with the most common patterns.
About the first thing, I did hear that. There's still pitch accent so it's not a straighy downline and more of a wobbling down, but the thing is that it never really gets back to the height of the し.
What I understood of this video, is that when you are saying a japanese frase, that will have one of those three patterns, in which the pitch rises, and later when the downstep occurs the pitch never rises again. And when you pronunce the next sentence: the pitch can rise again, occurs a downstep(no rising pitch). And then the next sentence will have the same pattern, and the next and the next, etc. Am I right?. Or do I misunderstood it?
it's not all sentences with the same pattern, if you said that..? Like, as an example: 彼女と土曜日に山を登る。 Here you go like.. (caps for the high parts) KAnojo to doYOubi ni yaMA wo noBORU. Natives do this not as explicit when talking casually, but they still do. And it's not only one downstep per sentence. You can construct pretty long sentences (just like the example) and you rather divide into (word + particle).
@@mathew2378 I know this is really late but these word-level pitch patterns are not entirely accurate. Try looking up dogen and Mattvsjapan on this topic and you'll probably find much more useful information
@@Ohrami right or wrong, I've never had an issue in understanding when Japanese say 寿司. In other words...pitch is not that important, especially considering different regions in Japan have different pitch patterns, and some such as where I'm from in Saitama are pitchless dialects. Perhaps where I live, I hear it right
@@gordonbgraham This video example isn't using a pitchless accent. The inability to tell the pitch is changing in the word in this video is so shocking to me as to be hardly believable if you have normal hearing.
@@Ohrami Perhaps not, however, Japanese is pitchless in the region of Saitama where I've lived for the past 30 years. If you mean stress, then OK...I get it. Pitch? I'm still not sure what that is and I've never had an issue understanding Japanese spoken at native speaker speed nor being understood in Japanese. Context conveys meaning more than pitch and we humans speak in sentences not in sets of homophones in isolation in succession.
"Using a single breath, your lungs hold less and less air and cannot keep up with the intonation." *all singers hearing this bust out laughing Also, using sentences in English that normal people would never use doesn't elicit much confidence. "Today I went swimming in the pool in the building next to the one with my classroom." Fix'd.
I appreciate the video's attempt to shine light on this difficult subject, but several points left me wondering about the accuracy of the content provided.
Firstly, it says that the pitch of sentences takes on a hiragana "he" shape, but even in the given example "sushi wo takusan tabemashita", the pitch doesn't steadily decline after the "shi" at all, at least not to my ear. While I do agree that the "shi" sound has the highest pitch in the sentence, the remainder of the sentence does not really take on a "he" shape.
Secondly, the comparison to English sentences was not very helpful. The second set of sentences are short but each have multiple stress/intonation peaks within a single sentence, which seems to contradict the "he" shape idea.
Thirdly, the arrows used for "パーティにいかない" seem misleading. In the question version, the pitch at "ない" first dips down, and then goes back up (rather than being a simple rise). In the statement form of "ない", the speaker in the recording does not drop the pitch as suggested by the arrow, but rather keeps it flat.
If someone can provide a convincing rebuttal or explanation, I would be happy to hear them.
The main positive takeaways I was able to get from this video were that
1) at the sentence level, pitch accent can differ from what you would expect from strictly looking at individual word-level pitch accent and
2) intonation can make the difference between an interrogative and declarative sentence.
The detailed explanations of these points, however, might need some reconsideration.
At the very least, the video made me think critically about these issues, so thank you for providing an opportunity for learning.
I agree on most points. However, the apparent disparency described in the first one might simply be because our brains are used to hearing a gradually falling pitch in speech. This causes us to not really hear it, even if the pitch does technically drop.
The second set of sentences weren't supposed to follow the へ pattarn.
This is definitely not a great representation of pitch accent. I'd say check out dogen and Mattvsjapan on this topic
they should have said that "it trends down" rather than "it is strictly decreasing". So the "high" sound in the 2nd word is lower than the high sound in the first word, and the high sound in the 3rd word is lower than the high sound in the 2nd word and so on.
But the patterns within a word still exists somewhat. Although I'm pretty sure there are exceptions, this is a 3-4 min video on a very difficult subject. So they're sticking with the most common patterns.
About the first thing, I did hear that. There's still pitch accent so it's not a straighy downline and more of a wobbling down, but the thing is that it never really gets back to the height of the し.
What I understood of this video, is that when you are saying a japanese frase, that will have one of those three patterns, in which the pitch rises, and later when the downstep occurs the pitch never rises again.
And when you pronunce the next sentence: the pitch can rise again, occurs a downstep(no rising pitch).
And then the next sentence will have the same pattern, and the next and the next, etc.
Am I right?. Or do I misunderstood it?
it's not all sentences with the same pattern, if you said that..?
Like, as an example:
彼女と土曜日に山を登る。
Here you go like.. (caps for the high parts)
KAnojo to doYOubi ni yaMA wo noBORU.
Natives do this not as explicit when talking casually, but they still do. And it's not only one downstep per sentence. You can construct pretty long sentences (just like the example) and you rather divide into (word + particle).
Merci buckets :P Awesome.
this video is excessively simplified and misleading.
ArtymusPrime which part I want to know by not creating it a habit
how so? I thought it appeared to be too good to be true ToT
@@mathew2378 I know this is really late but these word-level pitch patterns are not entirely accurate. Try looking up dogen and Mattvsjapan on this topic and you'll probably find much more useful information
寿／司＼を食べます
I don't hear it that way...I hear 寿司...as flat, the same
@@gordonbgraham You're hearing wrong then
@@Ohrami right or wrong, I've never had an issue in understanding when Japanese say 寿司. In other words...pitch is not that important, especially considering different regions in Japan have different pitch patterns, and some such as where I'm from in Saitama are pitchless dialects. Perhaps where I live, I hear it right
@@gordonbgraham This video example isn't using a pitchless accent. The inability to tell the pitch is changing in the word in this video is so shocking to me as to be hardly believable if you have normal hearing.
@@Ohrami Perhaps not, however, Japanese is pitchless in the region of Saitama where I've lived for the past 30 years. If you mean stress, then OK...I get it. Pitch? I'm still not sure what that is and I've never had an issue understanding Japanese spoken at native speaker speed nor being understood in Japanese. Context conveys meaning more than pitch and we humans speak in sentences not in sets of homophones in isolation in succession.
"Using a single breath, your lungs hold less and less air and cannot keep up with the intonation."
*all singers hearing this bust out laughing
Also, using sentences in English that normal people would never use doesn't elicit much confidence.
"Today I went swimming in the pool in the building next to the one with my classroom." Fix'd.