Most useful video to me in years! Fiiiiiinally someone explained it in simple, practical rules! -When in doubt, say it flat. -70% of native words and 50% of Chinese words are flat. -95% of loanwords have downsteps, but the most common ones are more likely to be pronounced flat, especially by younger people. Simple, to the point, practical. Easy to remember and stay mindful of while I learn and speak more. :D Thank you soooo much, I subscribed! I love how many examples you gave during this video, I'll be sure to come back to practice more! It's hard thinking in pitches while English and Spanish is all about stress and accents... Speaking flatly is pretty unnatural to me. :'D
Steve Jeon Yup! ^-^ I've been getting back into practicing pitch, and what I do is: *Understand the rules of pitch.* How the default is flat, or 平板型 heibangata, that is low on first mora to high on the rest. And "accents" in other types of patterns (atamagata, ogata, etc.) makes the the pitch drop to low all the way until the next word raises it again. *Get a Vocal Pitch Monitor app on my phone.* This has been the biggest step for me, before getting it I didn't fully understand the difference between stress and pitch. I'm still training my brain to think in pitch and not stress even while not relying on the app! *Go on the Forvo website or app and listen to natives.* Also, place my phone next to the computer so I can see how the pitch rises and falls for them. (It can't always pick it up well, though) *Go on OJAD to look up the pitch for words and entire phrases and practice mimicking them.* I'm mainly starting with flat heiban words because it's the hardest for me to grasp. It's practically the opposite of natural English and Spanish. @~@ Also, on the phrase generator function, definitely input entire phrases and enable the pitch line display so you can see how the pitch drops and rises throughout the phrase. It tends to work differently when words are strung together than when they're just alone. Like, look up 水 and お水, 髪の毛, 猫 and この猫, 犬 and この犬, etc. And entire sentences to see how particles work. That's what I've been doing the past couple days. Although I still have a long way to go, I improved a lot! ^-^
Strawberries777 Oh, so kind of you to take the time to wtite! I'm soooo grateful for your tips and wisdom!^.^ Thanks for letting me know about it. Actually you are the most kind-hearted person that I've ever encountered on TH-cam. I wish you could have a blog or personal TH-cam channel so I can go visit there. If you have one, I believe that it would be a bundle of fun and joy and help lots and lots of people out there be informed of beneficial topics. (Especially about the language.) Unfortunately as of right now, I don't have one for myself. But I have my Facebook account. Not that I "dwell on it" and put my stuff up there. But I sometimes get over to the place to make sure that I don't have any unred messages from my buddies. We'll be able to talk about Japan and its culture or language. If you are interested, let me know so either of us can add the other to Facebook friend list. By the way, I'll definitively follow your advice and put it into practice. Once again strawberries777, I appreciate you taking the time to open my eyes to other ways to master the language. Have a blessed day~!!! ㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡ I also want to say thank you to the creator of this particular channel. Please upload brand-new videos about Japan and all that jazz~!
Oh man, sorry I'm so late in replying to this! >.< Apologies! Aw shucks, no problem, I love to help whenever and wherever I can. ^_^ I technically have some sites and blogs of my own, but they're all unrelated to Japanese. I have a Lang-8 (which I abandoned) and HelloTalk account, have you heard of either of them? They're especially useful for practicing and speaking with natives! I do have a Facebook, but I don't use it much at all and it's only for friends and family whom I've actually met in person. Recently I tried out Discord after discovering one made for English-Japanese Language Exchange, it's quite awesome! I definitely recommend that. Here's a link if you're interested. You can participate in browsers, desktop, or mobile apps! You don't even need an account, just visit as a guest to see if it's up your alley. :) discordapp.com/channels/189571157446492161/189601264424714241 Also, if you haven't seen them from the suggestions to the side, absolutely look up videos by Dogen here in TH-cam! He goes more in depth about pitch accent rules, and has many fun other videos! I've been going between him and AJATT lately. Lastly, if you're interested, I have a bunch of website bookmarks I've hoarded over the years while on this Japanese learning journey. ~v~ Links and resources covering nearly all subjects about Japanese!
You do realize that, when dealing with only 2 types (let's say y and z), telling someone that 50% of x's (Chinese words) are y is the same as telling them that "I-don't-know"% of x's are y in terms of how much this helps in practical application of the rule (i.e. you will get the same number right without knowing this fact as you would with knowing the fact).
I appreciate this immensely. I think it is very important for all learners to pay attention to pitch, and consider how their syncopation and pitch match up to Japanese native speakers. Having taken multiple Japanese college courses, I've known students who are excellent at vocab and grammar memorization, but they didn't know not to force American pitch and syncopation on their words. The result sounded awful and awkward. You are one of the very few channels that provides this information, so thank you very much!
This is excellent! I have been studying Japanese for nearly 30 years and wish I had studied pitch patterns from the start to avoid falling into bad habits, anyone who thinks otherwise will never be well understood by the Japanese
I've been studying Japanese for 5 years and discovered potch accent recently. Fortunately I've been developing my accent a little by watching animes and listening to Japanese text books
I am very impressed! This is something only some pitch accent sensitive native speaker can do, I suppose. No English native speaker would ever bother to pick up this kind of topic. I think we are very lucky to have you around here.
I'm sorry but you are wrong 🤓 She does a good job of course... but Dōgen (american) specialized in teaching japanese pitch accent... you should probably check him out, if you are interested in Japanese pitch accent. Example: th-cam.com/video/O6AoilGEers/w-d-xo.html
Very helpful video ! I'm glad I learned those tips about pitch accent . I'll buy a dictionary to see the correct pronunciation of the words . Thanks for the helpful video ! ありがとうございます！
This video is amazing! Some actual practical, simple ways to help learners make an educated guess at the accent. Most resources I have found are either an in-depth academic analysis (not helpful an inaccessible for most learners) or suggest that pitch accent can only be learnt by immersion. So happy to find this~ The only thing is that the text in some parts is very low contrast so it strains my eyes a bit
This video is phenomenal. All Japanese learning resources except maybe less than a handful of ones dedicated to pitch accent are literally void of this concept.
I really appreciate your video, great material. I know lots of people that have been studying hard (me for 10 years, for instance) but can't speak naturaly because they don't know about pitch accent, and it is not a waste of energy to learn it at the beggining (on the contrary) because it doens't just come natturally. Thank you again.
These are rules that I see an absolute lack of being taught to students like myself. Thank you so much for this. I've been studying for 6 years and never had this explained so well.
I distinguish between pitch accent fine but the moment I try it I fail miserably. My vocal cords are not used to this it takes too much effort heh. Hopefully gets easier with time.
It has always been my goal to get the inside scoop on the native speaker thing(pitch) in my dealings with the Japanese language. Just as some tonal languages like Chinese make people have trouble pronouncing words, Japanese also seems to make its learners feel confused a tad when it comes to pronouncing words. But it would be a cinch to understand shades of meaning or noticeable differences in pronouncing words if we could approach this kind of great channel. In that sense, your video was helpful enough that I actually learned a lot! The whole time I watched it, it felt as if I watched a TV drama. I felt like a weight was lifted off my mind at the end of the video. Hahaha~ I would be absolutely delighted to see brand-new videos on your channel on a regular basis. I wish you all the best!!!
i’ve only been listening to this video for 10 seconds and i can already say it has helped me understand pitch accent without being too complicated. ❤️❤️
Thank you so much for your video! It has taught me something new about the Japanese language that I wish I knew before I started learning. However, I am thankful that I paid close attention to how the native speakers pronounced the words so I am pronouncing it correctly. If I hadn't done that, I would have had to start from the beginning after hearing the new information that you have given to us. Thank you again! Please keep making more videos. Hehe, I subscribed ^o^
At 4:34 you listed several wago that I'm pretty sure are loan words. "yasai"/やさい (vegetable) was loaned from Chinese: the kanji is 野菜, pronounced in Chinese rather similarly to "yasai". In modern Mandarin, it is "yeh tsai". It may be closer to the Japanese pronunciation the older Wu and Tang dialects from which Japanese imported many of the kanji. "Ringo"/林檎/苹果 (apple) is also a loan word. So is "budo"/ぶどう is a loan word from Chinese. The kanji for budo is 葡萄, which is pronounced very similarly in modern Mandarin (pu tao), and even more similarly in Taiwanese (podo), which is more similar to the older dialects.
I came here trying to understand the difference between a mora, a syllable, pitch accent and stress, and I think thanks to you I'm beginning to understand. But now I'm surprised that Japanese has loanwords for concepts which are extremely common everyday things like "bread", "milk" or "door". Aren't there native words for those things which surely existed in Japan long before foreign languages started to influence the vocabulary?
I think... Flat type: sakana (fish) Initial-High: First names, like Sakura I am quite interested in knowing more about Japanese low-high accent words, am I correct with these ones? Kabe (wall), koto, ano, kono, machi, uta, mono, osu (push), inu (dog), ame (rain), mizu (water), soko (there), ike (pond). Could you make a video about that, please? :3 Domo arigatou
I wish there are a supper list of loan words showing which type of pitch accent it is and a audio with how to pronounce it! Just like they did in this video..
very informative video. I am not sure its my speaker problem. But this video volume is very low as compared to others. May be you can fix it on you side. I am looking on my side as well.
クラブ with the flat pattern specifically sounds like a night club, while クラブ with the down step pattern sounds like a sport club and other club activities.
Very helpful, I have been learning Japanese for years and I think my pronunciation needs some attention. Also I notice ビン is translated at ‘bin’ can it mean this? I only know ビン as in 瓶 to mean bottle to container?
ありがとう😊 I’be only just started learning and your video was really helpful. Though I still don’t feel confident with pitch in words that are nearly the same but mean completely different things. Like “hashi” meaning either bridge or chopsticks depending on where you put the pitch. According to the text book I got anyways. 😊
@@JapaneseMania That's what really makes me nervous is getting that wrong and saying something completely different to what I mean. are there many words like that? :)
this is helpful for advanced learners but i can tell you that once you understand enough japanese to a conversational point this will come naturally as long as you're aware of it. memorizing pitch accent for bigginner or even intermediate learners is a massive waste of energy. just listen to japanese as much as possible and try to mimic and you'll be fine. i lived in japan for 3 and a half years and i didn't know anything about pitch accent and could be understood just fine.
How do you know you were understood just fine though? Would they really tell you if you were pronouncing things strangely? Maybe they eventually understood what you meant but your pronunciation made it more of a strain. I work with a lot of people from India and sometimes they can put emphasis on the wrong syllable and it throws me off a bit - for example, when someone said "environment" with emphasis on the ON instead of the VI, it took me a second to figure out what the word was.
l have being waiting for 2 years to learn Japanese thank god l have being procrastinating,if l didn't now l would know everything except for pitch accent.And l would not go back to re-learn it if l already have learned 2136 kanji.l am too lazy.
Would it be wrong to compare pitch accent to Romance languages' accents? Watching the video reminded me of how accents work in Spanish and Italian (e.g. "ancora" in Italian means "anchor" if pronounced "àncora", "again" if "ancóra").
Question - at 10:28 I noticed you had the peak at ”キャ” instead of at ”ン”. So, if "ン” is the 3rd to last kana, you peak the kana that comes before it? Am I missing something? Thanks. -David
From what i've learned, "ん”、”っ”、and vowel extensions cannot be stressed so if any of those happen to be the 3rd to last mora, you just stress the mora before that.
In my Japanese class (taught by a Japanese diplomat), the 'flat' words get taught as 'heiban' but he never uses the word 'flat', insisting that you can hear the pitch going up. And that atamadaka words are a clear drop. Finally, he says that nakadaka words do go up and down, but you've said that pitch never goes down once it's gone and up and vice-versa. What is true?? Because this class is killing me.
Ro the Lion I agree that the term “flat” can be confusing because it doesn’t correspond (imo) to what actually seems to be happening, but apparently that is a commonly used description in English for “heiban”. As for your final point, I believe in the video she says that once pitch goes DOWN it doesn’t go back UP, but she doesn’t state that the opposite is true - in other words, per her video pitch can and does go UP and then DOWN... but it doesn’t go DOWN and then back UP.
Thank you for this video, I find it very helpful. Do you have an example of words that are written the same but pronounced with different pitch? So I can hear just the pitch difference?
@@turquoisemanturk because Cantonese uses around 6 (or up to 8 or even 9) different tones/pitch patterns. Mandarin uses 4 different tones/pitch patterns if i remember correctly.
Total novice, as someone who Is learning through self study, how could I tell if I had a good pitch? So far as I can tell, couldnt I get away without pitch? In English I speak very monotone, so I almost guarantee it probably Carries over in my japanese. Also I am self studying so I dont have classmates or friends that speak Japanese. Are there any resources to help me "get it right?" If it's any consolation, google translate understands my Japanese fairly accurately.
If you're a novice, you probably don't have good pitch. One of the things that you can do is learn the pitch accent of a word while learning a word. In Anki, there are add-ons that help you with this, and there are dictionaries that contain pitch information.
The best thing to do, I suppose, is to listen carefully to how it is pronounced when you listen to the language (say, like Satori reader or news clips or whatever). Try to mimic the words perhaps. Don't stress about it too much at the beginning, try to soak it in naturally and do be aware of it though, would be my advice I would think.
@@masac2256 That's not the point. Some of those words are clearly derived from Chinese, e.g., ぶどう from "From Middle Chinese 葡萄 (buo-dâu) (compare modern Mandarin pútáo), from Bactrian bādāwa (“wine”)" (via wiktionary)
I absorbed the video pretty well, and the information is really helpful, but I think I'm tone deaf, I can't hear the difference between the pitches....
Man, "downstep" is such an unintuitive word for what is described in here. I wonder why that was the word agreed upon, something like "upstep" would make it more obvious.
@@michaels3003 From the examples here (2:23), only the initial high type words have a downstep *only*. The mid-high ones have a rise in pitch first, which I'd say is the more critical characteristic. The final-high ones don't even appear to have a downstep (disregarding the particle).
If it comes naturally to you just by practicing and listening Japanese, good for you :) I made this video to help those who want to get better at accents but I do realize a lot of people don't care, and that's fine.
Not for a lot of people. Learning it early on will give a good foundation to someone who might otherwise get into the habit of speaking the language with a thick and difficult to understand accent. I happen to be fluent in other languages/dialect that use a mora-timed pattern and phonetic sounds so it's easier for me to pick it up but it's not true for some people who only speak English.
Thank you truly for making this video. I want to learn Japanese because it is challenging , and I love challenges ^^. I aim to respect the language fully by not taking any part of it granted.
Some people need to learn this because they force their own accent onto japanese for some reason without realizing that's pretty dumb until you point it out to them.
Most useful video to me in years! Fiiiiiinally someone explained it in simple, practical rules!
-When in doubt, say it flat.
-70% of native words and 50% of Chinese words are flat.
-95% of loanwords have downsteps, but the most common ones are more likely to be pronounced flat, especially by younger people.
Simple, to the point, practical. Easy to remember and stay mindful of while I learn and speak more. :D
Thank you soooo much, I subscribed! I love how many examples you gave during this video, I'll be sure to come back to practice more! It's hard thinking in pitches while English and Spanish is all about stress and accents... Speaking flatly is pretty unnatural to me. :'D
Thanks a looot for summarizing this video. It definitely refreshed my memory. I appreciate it!
Steve Jeon Yup! ^-^
I've been getting back into practicing pitch, and what I do is:
*Understand the rules of pitch.* How the default is flat, or 平板型 heibangata, that is low on first mora to high on the rest. And "accents" in other types of patterns (atamagata, ogata, etc.) makes the the pitch drop to low all the way until the next word raises it again.
*Get a Vocal Pitch Monitor app on my phone.* This has been the biggest step for me, before getting it I didn't fully understand the difference between stress and pitch. I'm still training my brain to think in pitch and not stress even while not relying on the app!
*Go on the Forvo website or app and listen to natives.* Also, place my phone next to the computer so I can see how the pitch rises and falls for them. (It can't always pick it up well, though)
*Go on OJAD to look up the pitch for words and entire phrases and practice mimicking them.* I'm mainly starting with flat heiban words because it's the hardest for me to grasp. It's practically the opposite of natural English and Spanish. @~@ Also, on the phrase generator function, definitely input entire phrases and enable the pitch line display so you can see how the pitch drops and rises throughout the phrase. It tends to work differently when words are strung together than when they're just alone. Like, look up 水 and お水, 髪の毛, 猫 and この猫, 犬 and この犬, etc. And entire sentences to see how particles work.
That's what I've been doing the past couple days. Although I still have a long way to go, I improved a lot! ^-^
Strawberries777
Oh, so kind of you to take the time to wtite! I'm soooo grateful for your tips and wisdom!^.^ Thanks for letting me know about it.
Actually you are the most kind-hearted person that I've ever encountered on TH-cam. I wish you could have a blog or personal TH-cam channel so I can go visit there. If you have one, I believe that it would be a bundle of fun and joy and help lots and lots of people out there be informed of beneficial topics. (Especially about the language.)
Unfortunately as of right now, I don't have one for myself. But I have my Facebook account. Not that I "dwell on it" and put my stuff up there. But I sometimes get over to the place to make sure that I don't have any unred messages from my buddies.
We'll be able to talk about Japan and its culture or language. If you are interested, let me know so either of us can add the other to Facebook friend list.
By the way, I'll definitively follow your advice and put it into practice. Once again strawberries777, I appreciate you taking the time to open my eyes to other ways to master the language. Have a blessed day~!!!
ㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡ
I also want to say thank you to the creator of this particular channel. Please upload brand-new videos about Japan and all that jazz~!
Oh man, sorry I'm so late in replying to this! >.< Apologies!
Aw shucks, no problem, I love to help whenever and wherever I can. ^_^
I technically have some sites and blogs of my own, but they're all unrelated to Japanese. I have a Lang-8 (which I abandoned) and HelloTalk account, have you heard of either of them? They're especially useful for practicing and speaking with natives! I do have a Facebook, but I don't use it much at all and it's only for friends and family whom I've actually met in person.
Recently I tried out Discord after discovering one made for English-Japanese Language Exchange, it's quite awesome! I definitely recommend that. Here's a link if you're interested. You can participate in browsers, desktop, or mobile apps! You don't even need an account, just visit as a guest to see if it's up your alley. :)
discordapp.com/channels/189571157446492161/189601264424714241
Also, if you haven't seen them from the suggestions to the side, absolutely look up videos by Dogen here in TH-cam! He goes more in depth about pitch accent rules, and has many fun other videos! I've been going between him and AJATT lately.
Lastly, if you're interested, I have a bunch of website bookmarks I've hoarded over the years while on this Japanese learning journey. ~v~ Links and resources covering nearly all subjects about Japanese!
You do realize that, when dealing with only 2 types (let's say y and z), telling someone that 50% of x's (Chinese words) are y is the same as telling them that "I-don't-know"% of x's are y in terms of how much this helps in practical application of the rule (i.e. you will get the same number right without knowing this fact as you would with knowing the fact).
I appreciate this immensely. I think it is very important for all learners to pay attention to pitch, and consider how their syncopation and pitch match up to Japanese native speakers. Having taken multiple Japanese college courses, I've known students who are excellent at vocab and grammar memorization, but they didn't know not to force American pitch and syncopation on their words. The result sounded awful and awkward. You are one of the very few channels that provides this information, so thank you very much!
This is the clearest explanation of this that exists. Amazing.
This is excellent! I have been studying Japanese for nearly 30 years and wish I had studied pitch patterns from the start to avoid falling into bad habits, anyone who thinks otherwise will never be well understood by the Japanese
I've studied over 8 months and didn't realized they existed before not long ago.
I've been studying Japanese for 5 years and discovered potch accent recently. Fortunately I've been developing my accent a little by watching animes and listening to Japanese text books
I am very impressed! This is something only some pitch accent sensitive native speaker can do, I suppose. No English native speaker would ever bother to pick up this kind of topic. I think we are very lucky to have you around here.
I'm sorry but you are wrong 🤓
She does a good job of course...
but Dōgen (american) specialized in teaching japanese pitch accent... you should probably check him out, if you are interested in Japanese pitch accent.
Example: th-cam.com/video/O6AoilGEers/w-d-xo.html
actually the internet is awash with weebs monetising pitch accent for clicks
ありがとう ございます This video is the best I have seen on Japanese phonetics. Keep up the good work.
こちらこそ、やさしいコメントありがとうございます！
Four years later, still fantastic material!
Very helpful video ! I'm glad I learned those tips about pitch accent . I'll buy a dictionary to see the correct pronunciation of the words . Thanks for the helpful video ! ありがとうございます！
its not in the dictionary
Best pitch accent video ever.
Wow, this looks very professionally done, the author is certainly not an amateur, but an educated linguist
This video is amazing! Some actual practical, simple ways to help learners make an educated guess at the accent. Most resources I have found are either an in-depth academic analysis (not helpful an inaccessible for most learners) or suggest that pitch accent can only be learnt by immersion. So happy to find this~ The only thing is that the text in some parts is very low contrast so it strains my eyes a bit
This video is phenomenal. All Japanese learning resources except maybe less than a handful of ones dedicated to pitch accent are literally void of this concept.
I really appreciate your video, great material. I know lots of people that have been studying hard (me for 10 years, for instance) but can't speak naturaly because they don't know about pitch accent, and it is not a waste of energy to learn it at the beggining (on the contrary) because it doens't just come natturally. Thank you again.
Best explanation of Japanese pitch accent that I've found in 10 years of study. Thank you!!!
These are rules that I see an absolute lack of being taught to students like myself. Thank you so much for this. I've been studying for 6 years and never had this explained so well.
Your video is beautiful, clear, simple and clean. Subscribed.
This is a great video. After listening to the explanation, I was able to anticipate the correct flat pitch way to say the loan words!!!
I distinguish between pitch accent fine but the moment I try it I fail miserably. My vocal cords are not used to this it takes too much effort heh. Hopefully gets easier with time.
thanks a lot! i watched a lot of videos of japanese teachers but your video helped me more to understand pitch accent
I love the actual IPA transcription. It helped me to realize I need to not trust too much the Hepburn transcription.
This video sure is well-made
A grand Chapeau for these apex efforts, the Like is well earned, folks!
It has always been my goal to get the inside scoop on the native speaker thing(pitch) in my dealings with the Japanese language. Just as some tonal languages like Chinese make people have trouble pronouncing words, Japanese also seems to make its learners feel confused a tad when it comes to pronouncing words.
But it would be a cinch to understand shades of meaning or noticeable differences in pronouncing words if we could approach this kind of great channel. In that sense, your video was helpful enough that I actually learned a lot!
The whole time I watched it, it felt as if I watched a TV drama. I felt like a weight was lifted off my mind at the end of the video. Hahaha~ I would be absolutely delighted to see brand-new videos on your channel on a regular basis. I wish you all the best!!!
Very well explained, thank you!
Much better than all of the other videos on this topic I've found!
i’ve only been listening to this video for 10 seconds and i can already say it has helped me understand pitch accent without being too complicated. ❤️❤️
Thank you so much for your video! It has taught me something new about the Japanese language that I wish I knew before I started learning. However, I am thankful that I paid close attention to how the native speakers pronounced the words so I am pronouncing it correctly. If I hadn't done that, I would have had to start from the beginning after hearing the new information that you have given to us. Thank you again! Please keep making more videos. Hehe, I subscribed ^o^
The accurate IPA transcriptions ammuse me greatly. Thanks a lot for such an informative video!
At 4:34 you listed several wago that I'm pretty sure are loan words. "yasai"/やさい (vegetable) was loaned from Chinese: the kanji is 野菜, pronounced in Chinese rather similarly to "yasai". In modern Mandarin, it is "yeh tsai". It may be closer to the Japanese pronunciation the older Wu and Tang dialects from which Japanese imported many of the kanji. "Ringo"/林檎/苹果 (apple) is also a loan word. So is "budo"/ぶどう is a loan word from Chinese. The kanji for budo is 葡萄, which is pronounced very similarly in modern Mandarin (pu tao), and even more similarly in Taiwanese (podo), which is more similar to the older dialects.
3:02 she said that 50% of Chinese loan words have flat pattern, I suppose that many Chinese words are not seen as loan words by Japanese.
thank you!! This is extremely helpful
thanks for the video. Really helpful.
Awesome video, thank you I understand so much better now. Wakarimashita!
I came here trying to understand the difference between a mora, a syllable, pitch accent and stress, and I think thanks to you I'm beginning to understand. But now I'm surprised that Japanese has loanwords for concepts which are extremely common everyday things like "bread", "milk" or "door". Aren't there native words for those things which surely existed in Japan long before foreign languages started to influence the vocabulary?
Very important to learn, thank you very much!
I assumed these rules!! I had no idea I was right
This is gold!
Canela en rama, papá!!! Canela en rama!!
Excellent
Convert to flat pitch was most useful, because I could listen for the difference in two versions.
I think...
Flat type: sakana (fish)
Initial-High: First names, like Sakura
I am quite interested in knowing more about Japanese low-high accent words, am I correct with these ones?
Kabe (wall), koto, ano, kono, machi, uta, mono, osu (push), inu (dog), ame (rain), mizu (water), soko (there), ike (pond).
Could you make a video about that, please? :3 Domo arigatou
Wow you are right! Except ame (rain) which is high-low
参考になりました！ありがとうございます！
I wish there are a supper list of loan words showing which type of pitch accent it is and a audio with how to pronounce it! Just like they did in this video..
very informative video.
I am not sure its my speaker problem. But this video volume is very low as compared to others. May be you can fix it on you side. I am looking on my side as well.
Bilal Ahmad no it's not u. I can barely hear anything on max! It's a real pity.
hmm thats really pity!
クラブ with the flat pattern specifically sounds like a night club, while クラブ with the down step pattern sounds like a sport club and other club activities.
Very helpful, I have been learning Japanese for years and I think my pronunciation needs some attention. Also I notice ビン is translated at ‘bin’ can it mean this? I only know ビン as in 瓶 to mean bottle to container?
ありがとう😊 I’be only just started learning and your video was really helpful. Though I still don’t feel confident with pitch in words that are nearly the same but mean completely different things. Like “hashi” meaning either bridge or chopsticks depending on where you put the pitch. According to the text book I got anyways. 😊
That's so true! Hashi means chopsticks if you pronounce it with a downstep pitch while it means bridge or edge if pronounced as a flat pattern.
@@JapaneseMania That's what really makes me nervous is getting that wrong and saying something completely different to what I mean. are there many words like that? :)
@@stephiroth2176 , they do exist it "nobody" seems to know how many.
and we've found the gem.
Best channel!
this is helpful for advanced learners but i can tell you that once you understand enough japanese to a conversational point this will come naturally as long as you're aware of it. memorizing pitch accent for bigginner or even intermediate learners is a massive waste of energy. just listen to japanese as much as possible and try to mimic and you'll be fine. i lived in japan for 3 and a half years and i didn't know anything about pitch accent and could be understood just fine.
How do you know you were understood just fine though? Would they really tell you if you were pronouncing things strangely? Maybe they eventually understood what you meant but your pronunciation made it more of a strain. I work with a lot of people from India and sometimes they can put emphasis on the wrong syllable and it throws me off a bit - for example, when someone said "environment" with emphasis on the ON instead of the VI, it took me a second to figure out what the word was.
This is for people who want to speak well, not just to be understood.
can you provide a link to the slides used in this video?it would be very helpful. thanks.
l have being waiting for 2 years to learn Japanese thank god l have being procrastinating,if l didn't now l would know everything except for pitch accent.And l would not go back to re-learn it if l already have learned 2136 kanji.l am too lazy.
great video, thanks!
Would it be wrong to compare pitch accent to Romance languages' accents? Watching the video reminded me of how accents work in Spanish and Italian (e.g. "ancora" in Italian means "anchor" if pronounced "àncora", "again" if "ancóra").
No, stress is not the same as pitch accent.
@@浄瑠眠成志久 , the serve a similar purpose (if not the same even). It just the specific methods differ.
It is not wrong, but I am having trouble finding somebody who would see the "big picture" and agree with me.
Question - at 10:28 I noticed you had the peak at ”キャ” instead of at ”ン”. So, if "ン” is the 3rd to last kana, you peak the kana that comes before it? Am I missing something?
Thanks. -David
From what i've learned, "ん”、”っ”、and vowel extensions cannot be stressed so if any of those happen to be the 3rd to last mora, you just stress the mora before that.
In my Japanese class (taught by a Japanese diplomat), the 'flat' words get taught as 'heiban' but he never uses the word 'flat', insisting that you can hear the pitch going up. And that atamadaka words are a clear drop. Finally, he says that nakadaka words do go up and down, but you've said that pitch never goes down once it's gone and up and vice-versa. What is true?? Because this class is killing me.
Your teacher is correct, the college course of course goes into greater detail than the ten minute video. :)
Ro the Lion I agree that the term “flat” can be confusing because it doesn’t correspond (imo) to what actually seems to be happening, but apparently that is a commonly used description in English for “heiban”. As for your final point, I believe in the video she says that once pitch goes DOWN it doesn’t go back UP, but she doesn’t state that the opposite is true - in other words, per her video pitch can and does go UP and then DOWN... but it doesn’t go DOWN and then back UP.
Good example from Dōgen:
th-cam.com/video/O6AoilGEers/w-d-xo.html
You remembered it very well, so the teacher did his/her job.
Thank you for this video, I find it very helpful. Do you have an example of words that are written the same but pronounced with different pitch? So I can hear just the pitch difference?
A-me and a-ME, HA-shi and ha-SHI.
Thank you so very very much!!
It comes naturally when my first language is Cantonese.
How come ?
@@turquoisemanturk because Cantonese uses around 6 (or up to 8 or even 9) different tones/pitch patterns.
Mandarin uses 4 different tones/pitch patterns if i remember correctly.
@@JiSiN3000 I know that but I did not understand Its relevance with Japanese pitch accent.
@@turquoisemanturk ah sorry, i misunderstood your comment 😅
Very impressive
Ah! So the drawn out vowel in for instance スノーボード counts as a mora? Interesting.
Wow I had no idea so many words sound like english!
They were derived from English.
3:46 reminded me of naruto, handsigns
Total novice, as someone who Is learning through self study, how could I tell if I had a good pitch?
So far as I can tell, couldnt I get away without pitch? In English I speak very monotone, so I almost guarantee it probably Carries over in my japanese.
Also I am self studying so I dont have classmates or friends that speak Japanese. Are there any resources to help me "get it right?"
If it's any consolation, google translate understands my Japanese fairly accurately.
If you're a novice, you probably don't have good pitch. One of the things that you can do is learn the pitch accent of a word while learning a word. In Anki, there are add-ons that help you with this, and there are dictionaries that contain pitch information.
The best thing to do, I suppose, is to listen carefully to how it is pronounced when you listen to the language (say, like Satori reader or news clips or whatever). Try to mimic the words perhaps. Don't stress about it too much at the beginning, try to soak it in naturally and do be aware of it though, would be my advice I would think.
「生姜」、「野菜」、「林檎」、「葡萄」、「お茶」、「薬缶」、「椅子」とは和語ではなくて、漢語でしょう
True, they actually are kango.
「漢字を含む言葉 = 漢語」ではありません。
漢字で書かれているだけであって日本語の言葉ですよ。
ちなみにこの場合の「漢」は昔の中国のことです。
@@masac2256 That's not the point. Some of those words are clearly derived from Chinese, e.g., ぶどう from "From Middle Chinese 葡萄 (buo-dâu) (compare modern Mandarin pútáo), from Bactrian bādāwa (“wine”)" (via wiktionary)
How many かえるs are there
I absorbed the video pretty well, and the information is really helpful, but I think I'm tone deaf, I can't hear the difference between the pitches....
They are fairly subtle, i.e., she chose to not exaggerate them.
In most books, "cow" is marked as accented high whereas this video says it's flat. Why is that?
If it does not have a down-step, it belongs to the flat group. A pitch up-step by itself does not define a different accent group.
8:03 Surfer or Suffer
I didn't think surfers suffer, but I could be wrong (think, a shark attack?).
4:00
No entiendo inglés.
Arigato
/ˈeksələnt ˈvɪdiəʊ/
Hm, can you do it if you have deep voice too?
Of course! I have a weak high-pitched voice but still my pitch goes up and down within a certain range.
your romaji font is wild and should just be omitted entirely
Man, "downstep" is such an unintuitive word for what is described in here. I wonder why that was the word agreed upon, something like "upstep" would make it more obvious.
It means the pitch is quickly lowered (from one mora to the next one). How is this a naming problem?
@@michaels3003 From the examples here (2:23), only the initial high type words have a downstep *only*. The mid-high ones have a rise in pitch first, which I'd say is the more critical characteristic. The final-high ones don't even appear to have a downstep (disregarding the particle).
no one care about accent unless you are native speaker
speaking of accents. this girl has a sexy british/american/japanese accent lol
Why do u sound leik computr
.... NOBODY NEEDS TO LEARN THIS... THIS COMES NATURALLY JUST BY PRACTICING AND LISTENING TO JAPANESE. WHY BOTHER MAKE A LANGUAGE HARDER THAN IT IS?!?!
If it comes naturally to you just by practicing and listening Japanese, good for you :) I made this video to help those who want to get better at accents but I do realize a lot of people don't care, and that's fine.
Rude, Rizu.
Not for a lot of people. Learning it early on will give a good foundation to someone who might otherwise get into the habit of speaking the language with a thick and difficult to understand accent. I happen to be fluent in other languages/dialect that use a mora-timed pattern and phonetic sounds so it's easier for me to pick it up but it's not true for some people who only speak English.
Thank you truly for making this video. I want to learn Japanese because it is challenging , and I love challenges ^^. I aim to respect the language fully by not taking any part of it granted.
Some people need to learn this because they force their own accent onto japanese for some reason without realizing that's pretty dumb until you point it out to them.
thanks this helped me alot OwO