So true about pitch accents. I worked in Japan for seven years. When eating at a Japanese restaurant, and I asked for "hashi", the waiter never brought me a bridge. However, my Noble Metatron, you just gave me a great idea. My Japanese wife's birthday is coming up. After telling her I'll get her some "hana" for her birthday, I think I'll go to the local joke shop pick up a dozen plastic noses! 🤣
Fluent speaker here. I used to kind of care about the pitch, until I started to live with my partner. He is an awa-ben speaker, and I have been so affected by that accent in an unconscious way that people have started to told me I sound weird ever since. My Japanese is now a mix of standard Japanese with Awa-ben, so now I don't care at all.
As I grew up in Japan, Japanese was my first language. So I speak with a pitch accent (albeit sounding like a gaijin) as it had come naturally. I even didn't know about it until I got interested in languages. In my opinion, one should just mimic what native speakers do rather than studying it in detail. I have once heard an Italian speaking Japanese who is living in Japan for decades. His pronunciation of vowels and consonants are spot on (it always helps that the two languages share a similar sound inventory). However, he does not speak with a pitch accent, he speaks most words with the accent on the penultimate syllable as if it were Italian. So I had to listen very well to even get a grasp of what he's talking about. So yeah, if someone would ask me, pitch accent is important
I think the Italian you met was having troubles more with sentence intonation or even sintagma intonation than with pitch accent. The former one is even more important than pitch accent, interestingly more basic, and of course it would make communication more difficult if not learnt. What you described is a person having troubles with sentence intonation, and I know of this because I'm a native Spanish speaker who teaches Japanese, and I've seen this problem a lot with beginner learners, given that Spanish and Italian are based on stressed accent. Of course, having troubles with sentence intonation automatically will affect pitch accent, but the inverse may not occur. Thus, pitch accent in the end is worth at least the basics, but not that important. Yet sintagma or sentence intonation IS important. I had more misunderstandings by confusing the intonation of a sentence, "chi" with "shi", long vowels vrs short vowels, presence or absence of glotal stop (which is represented in romaji as double consonants), than with pitch accent. Really, I don't remember having misunderstandings because wrong pitch accents.
Yes, as a Japanese guy I can understand 100％ with wrong pitch accent. But if you speak with perfect pitch accent I would say "wow your Japanese is really good!"
Just teaching that "it exists, but you'll still be understood" should be enough for them to pay attention to it when they're ready to go there (if they want). That should be the bare minimum. Learning about the basic rules should be done, but not putting too much emphasis on it unless the student is ready for it.
I majored in Japanese at Ca'Foscari a few years ago, we were taught pitch accent by one of the native professors on the first week. But we were rarely corrected on our pronunciation, even things like dropping the H, so many of the students still had heavy italian accents by year 3. I think at least being aware of pitch accent is important at a beginner level, so an individual student can choose whether of not they want to put time in to learn it. When I learn a language, I want to pronounce words as close as possible to a native speaker. So naturally I also study pitch accent in Japanese
I minored in Japanese in the early 90's - 6 semesters with all native teachers. The weird thing is that none of them even mentioned pitch accent - I only found out about it several years after I graduated. I had a vague sense while learning it that there was a sort of melody to the endings, which I tried to emulate, but I had no idea it was standardized. I think maybe the reasoning was that it might overwhelm foreign learners who already had to deal with kana, kanji, the grammar, etc. and also maybe because it varies based on different dialects
That because they are happy to have people generally wanting to learn the language this pitch accent nonsense is really like well I can speak/read/write at a college level now how can I can I get hired at NHK
For 1 it isn't really "standardized". The pitch accent people learn is based on the Tokyo accent, but like any accent, every other place in Japan has a slightly different one. The only "correct" accent is one that people can understand and most learners who engage with native speakers or at least native level material will pick up the accent naturally. I've rarely met anyone who just has a completely awful pitch accent even among people who don't study it directly. Plus, it's kind of expected that foreigners will have foreign accents in any language.
I appreciate this video as it's one of the most reasonable I've seen on the topic! There are too many anti-pitch accent videos out there that just dismiss it as stupid, useless, or unnecessary. I'm not kidding, they seriously use those words! What a bizarre way to refer to something that is part of the culture and speech of the language you're learning or teaching.
As someone how's native language uses pitch accent (Swedish) I completely agree with your point about context. Sure it can sound a little funny if the pitch is wrong, but I'll still understand you.
@mechupaunhuevon7662 I meant the other way around, but I think I was misremembering what I heard. So it's the swedes who live in Finland who do that, not the Finnish who learn the language as a second language, gotcha
@mechupaunhuevon7662 Yeah, I suppose if their mother tongue doesn't have pitch accent (like my mother doesn't for instance) it's harder for them to do it. Have you noticed if swedes or Serbians have an easier time with learning Japanese pitch as compared to Americans, Italians etc who don't have pitch in their languages?
A lot of teachers don't try to teach it because of how many students either can't hear pitch differences, or find it too overwhelming and thus demotivating. But it is important if you want to sound... Well, good. And it's not really that tough. I've been learning Japanese for about 7 years and I'm proud of having good pitch. The hardest part is learning to listen out for it. Then it's like any other part of the language in that you use study and immersion over time to learn the rules and pick up how different words are said by paying close attention. It's really very rewarding and poor pitch accent starts to sound really bad when you know the difference.
It’s both. Pitch accent exists but it’s not a necessity. Thank you for the right answer. When I taught preschoolers English in Japan if I was super picky about making sure they pronounced the R’s or L’s perfectly it would have overwhelmed the students. Having a foreign accent isn’t a huge barrier for communication. For me I didn’t worry too much about pitch accent… I attainted moderate fluency and then I moved here and once I heard it year after year you sort of pick it up naturally. It depends on your goal, innit
I agree on everything EXCEPT that you pick it up naturally. You don’t. If you think you did you are over estimating yourself. I’m not trying to hate, I say this because that’s what I thought about me and I was wrong. I needed to study it. No one can pick it up naturally except a native.
@@metatronacademy I’m not saying it comes naturally but you can hear the different in pitch easily. Maybe if you don’t know pitch accent exists at all you wouldn’t but if you know that the difference is there for a reason I think it’s not unreasonably difficult. Also I’ve been here for 18 years and knew of pitch accent from the start so maybe my unconscious bias is kicking in… I’ve never studied it extensively but I don’t think it’s impossible to hear the difference unless you’ve studied the crap out of it.
@@VieiraFi without any training I doubt it. With good training I’d say mostly yes in the case or Mandarin, but it needs to be high level training. There really is a difference between how tones work and how pitch works. I personally found the tones in Mandarin easier than the pitch in Japanese. Cantonese would be a whole different level of discussion.
@@nofosho3567 Oh I agree you can surely hear the differences, I just don’t think you can pick it up and replicate it by ear. The reason is because you will naturally develop the incorrect structures or pattern and you will start to apply the wrong pitch patters to the wrong words because they sound similar or have a similar number of mora. It’s impossible to avoid.
As a finnish person I can say that finnish language has many words that have different meanings but hardly ever there has been a missunderstanding. Here's a small example word "Kuusi" it can mean many things such as number six, it can mean a fir tree. Or a word "maa" it can mean many things such as Soil, land, country, earth, or ground.
Thank you! I am 5 months into learning Japanese. I don't mind sounding foreign. It will be pretty obvious to a Japanese person anyway when I have the vocabulary of a toddler.
Lithuanian, Latvian, Norwegian, Swedish, Slovenian, Serbian also have the pitch accent, usually two, sometimes there, as did ancient Greek. In many of these languages there are many word pairs that can be distinguished only by the right pitch accent. I am a native speaker of lithuanian and can testify to the importance of the tones in that archaic indogermanic language.
One of the things I really like in your approach is the practicality of considering different students' profiles. I used to study Japanese when I came across pitch accent through Dogen videos, which made me freeze 'cause I had this perfect pronunciation obsession. It took me a couple of years to get back to it.
The pitch accent people learn is based on the Tokyo accent, but like any accent, every other place in Japan has a slightly different one. The only "correct" accent is one that people can understand and most learners who engage with native speakers or at least native level material will pick up a more natural accent over time. I've rarely met anyone who just has a completely awful pitch accent even among people who don't study it directly. Plus, it's kind of expected that foreigners will have foreign accents in any language. Pretty much every European English speaker has "foreign" accent to me lol. I definitely feel like for anyone who has the goal to become fluent in speaking Japanese, they should at least study for basics and be aware that it exists and how to identify it. That'll go a long way in keeping them from sound very strange when speaking with an actual Japanese person.
I want to study pitch accent mainly because it sound beautiful this way. I am studying it as a Beginner. I also kind of mess with the sounds in my head internally as I process it.
I addressed this to my guide the exact moment I set foot on Japan. She honestly seemed to not understand what I was asking... 😅 No seriously, Japanese seems to rely way more on context rather than on pitch
I studied Japanese in college and was taught not to focus on pitch accent at that stage, and to wait until you go to Japan and then pick up the local pitch accent by listening to people around you, rather than learning the Tokyo-based pitch accent and having to possibly adjust to something very different when you get to Japan. Doing it this way and then going to Kansai enabled me to pick up that pitch accent without any interference from the often-opposite Tokyo one. I say let your Japanese community be your guide and learn to speak like the people around you do. Obviously you aren't going to want to overdo local dialect words, which will sound strange from a non-native if you overdo it, but pitch accent is something I was happy to pick up from the locals.
My language also is a language with a pitch accent and I had native Japanese teachers when learning so, this might have helped. I also remember that we were taught about the different pronunciations of はな as “flower” and “nose”. I kinda think that maybe the pitch accent during the homonyms situations could be taught. Even if it’s understandable from the context it helps to speak properly.
In an anime I was watching (Elfen Lied) there´s a character who is called Tanikaze Nagate. The surname is always pronounced taníkaze, but the name sometimes is pronounced nagáte (most of the time) and sometimes nágate.
Hello there my good sir, as someone that has been learning Russian for 2 years. I know that there's no pitch accent in the language, I do know what it's like to learn a language completely opposite of your native language. I admire your videos, you are a wonderful person, thank you.
Thanks for approaching this topic, I was thinking about asking you about this. Recently I've been meaning to return to Japanese study. Please do some vids on pitch accent.
I'm not currently learning Japanese, but were I to start I'd definitely want to learn pitch accent. I'd feel self conscious potentially putting the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLABle
@@Akaykimuy but it is when you start out since as Metatron mention another layer of unnecessary level of complication when the most important think is to learn kana well. Simple to complex just like anything learned
Here are some examples of pitch accent-related videos Most teachers don't venture explaining or even mentioning it since it's all over the place and much more complicated than tones in Chinese for instance because pitch accent not only depends on a single word itself but also on other factors such as particles following the word, the conjugation of a verb, word combinations, it can depend on the role of the word (is it used as a noun or as an adverb, etc.), And it is highly irregular, like reaaaally irregular th-cam.com/video/S6bEqpoga2M/w-d-xo.htmlsi=71DF0WTXNXtev696 th-cam.com/video/mcMgaO1inNc/w-d-xo.htmlsi=1xuvUe1B5L3s7yHk th-cam.com/video/jcn2cpFdzz4/w-d-xo.htmlsi=TeAFrxCJSPfRX5Dm th-cam.com/video/khjLFgNMh4M/w-d-xo.htmlsi=DP72Qd5LFe4M-s7c
As someone studying Japanese and planning to live for some time in Nagasaki, hearing that they have a different pitch accent is news to me! I have been doing my best to have the Tokyo pitch accent but now I'm a bit interested in how they speak in Nagasaki, thank you for bringing this to my attention!
Nagasaki will be different, but easy for anyone in the country to understand. Enjoy, and let Nagasaki language become your language. It's a beautiful thing!
Japanese already being a very context-dependent language, it's no surprise that they can adapt to a slightly faulty pronunciation... And that's not like homophones don't exist in english. Do you often confuse eight and ate in a sentence? In french we have lots of perfectly identical homophones, no difference in stress or pitch at all, like sein - ceint - saint - sain - seing (breast - encircled - holy - healthy - signature) - yet apart from occasional puns, they won't be confused because there's always context around them: "Elle a de beaux seins" (She has beautiful breasts) ; "Le château est ceint d'une muraille" (The castle is encircled by a wall) ; "C'est un lieu saint" (It is a holy place) ; "Je prends des repas sains" (I take healthy meals) ; "Il a mis son seing sur la page" (He put his signature on the page) for example.
I spent years studying japanese when I was at the university. I absolutely loved the language, but eventually got frustrated with it exactly because of the pitch accent, and I think it was the main reason I stopped studying the language. Back then I couldn't find resources to learn it, nor had I even the proficiency to hear or reproduce the pitches correctly. They're much more subtle and also difficult to predict than in Swedish that I also used to study.
I think this is one of those "high context" vs "low context" cultures (and hence, languages) things. As Romance speakers we're somewhat used to a certain high level context, as does Japanese, so we we can understand the relative weight of a minor gramatical feature ("play it down" a little, if you want). But Germanic languages (and hence, most of native English speakers) tend to work on a low-context basis, so is easy for them to give pitch-accent the same importance other features have on-system, as for them if it exists it should be for something it adds to the communication.
wait what? can pitch accent be reconstructed to any level of precision? or do we have records telling us exactly how it was done I'm asking because even at a single time different regions in Japan use different pitch accents, that indicates it varies even faster than vowels, so reconstruction must be terrible
@@MooImABunny well we have a general idea of the general flow of the pitch accent in 5th century Attic Greek. We don’t exactly know what the exact difference in pitch between a raised vowel would be over a non raised, but we do know, for example, which vowel would be raised.
Learning pitch-accent mean you show some level of seriousness towards your language target Yes you can speak broken Japanese to the native and they'll say 日本語上手ですね to you Or they'll say "How long you've been studied Japanese" if you're studied pitch-accent
surprisingly good video, really liked the point on context, it's something that MvJ either doesn't understand or is lying about when he claims that the difference between 橋 and 箸 is as important as 橋 vs 歌詞 lol
Context fixes a lot of things.. on the other hand, my wife (Japanese) and some others have started claiming that my Japanese pronunciation (I'm not fluent) is vastly better than before. In fact my pronunciation is just as it was in the past, the only difference is that I have become more conscious about pitch. But to those mentioned it feels like my pronunciation of the language has improved. Another data point is my own native language.. it's not as pitch-based as Japanese, though it does exist to separate certain words (with sometimes three different pitches, sometimes four, for a few specific words), but what we do have is intonation. And when I have problems immediately getting what foreigners are saying in my native language it's always caused by incorrect intonation (if the sentence is otherwise correct). I'm actually shocked by how often this happens, as I have interacted with non-native speakers for decades. But even for simple sentences I'm sometimes thrown off just because the intonation is wrong. My internal "filter" isn't triggered correctly and I don't get it, in real-time at least (I have tons of "filters" to slot in to decode the very many dialects of my language, and to decode other languages - first I hear gibberish, then the filter slots in and it gets clear - incorrect intonation sometimes make me stumble. On the other hand "incorrectly" pronounced "r"'s etc don't matter much).
I've studied Japanese since 2017. I would say i'm quite fluent. I've got a high score on n1, BJT, do business in japanese and live here with a japanese wife etc. I've personally never studied beyond the basics of pitch accent, and I've also never had an issue with people misunderstanding me. In terms of accent I get told that I have quite a good accent and it's not like other native english speakers, maybe because i spoke italian growing up (still studying now, not super fluent). In terms of being misunderstood I've had moments where it was on 同音異義語 (homophone) that are all 平板 (not having a specific pitch accent). for example, I almost started an argument with my wife by saying the word 矯正 (correction, of a flaw etc) but she had interpreted it as 強制 (compulsion,coercion). they are both pronounced the same way 'kyousei' Just my little anecdote
Yeah while in university they never taught us pitch. we might have briefly talked about it but they always reiterated that Japanese is highly contextual.
The judgment for lack of perfect pronunciation is the result of an unrealistic purism created by the 'I'm better than you' types. I'm an Italian speaker with a French wife; and they are constantly on me about my 'horrible" French pronunciation. They correct my sounds constantly and I get so annoyed cause they obviously know what I said or meant. It's not like they don't understand, they do. They're just French ;o) If you don't say it they way they think you should, you're wrong.
THANK YOU. I've been living in Japan for about 16 years and no restaurant server has ever brought me a bridge when I asked for chopsticks THANK HEAVENS. Something that bothers me is how people are trying to make an entire science of pitch accent when even the Japanese themselves don't. In Spanish, as you know I'm sure, Metatron, accents are an exact science, the Spanish going as far has marking accents with a tilde. En italiano se hace lo mismo, ¿no es así? I spoke Spanish, then English, then Japanese, and in my opinion, pitch accent, is not really that different than accents in Spanish or stress accent in English. If you're already used to working with accents, then perceiving and producing Japanese pitch accent shouldn't be a problem. English has stress, and I argue, it's own pitch accent. But neither is formally taught in schools. At least in my experience, no one told me there was a high-low pattern for "dessert" and a rising intonation for "desert." I just learned to say these words differently because they're two different words and people will get a chuckle if you use the wrong one. Still, I don't think there will ever be a misunderstanding at a restaurant where a waiter will bring a foreign customer some sand because they ordered a "desert." People will understand. English has its own pitches. You sound "off" if your pitches/intonation aren't that of a native speaker. And yet, I don't know if someone has sat down to create an exact science of this yet. LIGHT your cigarette. Light YOUR cigarette. Light your CIGARETTE. This is the same sentence and yet, it means something different depending on what word we choose to accent. I'm sure you can already hear that the pitch pattern is different in each one. High-low-low, low-high-low, low-low-high respectively. An English teacher is not going to go this into detail with any of their students. Unless they're a a person training say an actor or something for a film and the actor is trying to sound native. And that's just it, isn't it! The only people that are bothered with this are those who are trying to pass as natives. As if pitch accent were the only aspect that would give you away as a foreigner. I hate to have to say it, but unless you look anything other than Japanese that's just never going to happen. Over the phone, maybe. And then maybe not even then. You can have impeccable pitch accent, but it will do you no good if your ら row is off. Pronunciation of doubled consonants. (Little っ; both of these Italians have an advantage.) Perception and pronunciation of long and short vowels. Or how about ん? つ? These are all sounds notoriously difficult for foreigners to make. And we're not even at grammar. Can you use は and が correctly? Can you address yourself and others in 敬語 correctly? Do you how to use 自動詞 and他動詞 correctly? So called "passive voice?" "Adverse passive" etc.? These are all aspects of Japanese that will give you away as a foreigner no matter how good your 高低アクセント is. Anyway, grazie 🤌 for this video. There are some people who really need to hear it.
"LIGHT your cigarette. Light YOUR cigarette. Light your CIGARETTE. " All three mean the same thing. Only the context of the answer is different. 1. Maybe you were doing something different with your cigarette. 2. Maybe you were trying to light someone else's cigarette. 3. Maybe be you were lighting your cigar or something instead of your cigarette.
Aquí hablante nativo de español que enseña japonés. Concuerdo con todo lo que dijo usted. En español nuestras reglas de acento son pocas, casi no hay ninguna excepción, y si parece que la hay, en realidad es una regla específica, no varía de país a país ("transitó", "transito" y tránsito" significarán lo mismo y se tildan donde se tienen que tildar en España, México, Argentina, Costa Rica, Colombia, El Salvador, Cuba e incluso Chile.), y sí puede causar malentendidos si no se atiende. En japonés es más importante todo lo que usted mencionó que el acento tonal. He tenido malentendidos por confundir vocal larga o corta, consonante doble o simple; す, つ y ず; ち vrs し que por acento tonal, del cual de hecho no recuerdo haber tenido un malentendido, y yo no he estudiado acento tonal con intensidad como sí lo he hecho con la gramática y los kanji. Sí es importante, eso sí, saber las reglas básicas de entonación de oraciones o sintagmas: saber por ejemplo que si quieres hacer una pausa, hazla después de las partículas, asegúrate de que la entonación baje en las partículas y después de los verbos (excepto si haces una pregunta), que la primera mora (digamos que "sílaba" aunque no es exactamente lo mismo) y la segunda tengan el acento opuesto, que no hay subidas y bajadas como sí pasa en español. Casi siempre les digo a mis estudiantes que si les cuesta mantener la entonación "plana" que tiene el japonés, que pronuncien las palabras como si fueran esdrújulas o sobreesdrújulas, y no graves, curiosamente este truco ayuda a que la entonación se parezca más a la japonesa y que el acento caiga en las partículas.
I've been practicing daily for around a year now and I can say that delving to deeply in the pitch accent definitely inhibited my progress in learning the language. I think it was good to know but so far it has been far less important towards learning fluency. I feel like it'll be something I go back too when I can actually have conversations and start to learn which accents best match my personality.
How about "shadowing"? That could be a good idea to repeat the most common expressions. Rest can be learned if needed, e.g: if it is a subject you are keen on.
When native speakers try and understand what you are saying, they do not listen to every word, their brain cross checks what you say with their experiences throughout life (this is why we are able to understand people talking in places like clubs, despite other loud noises blocking words). If you do not have reasonable pitch accent, correct rhythm, etc, then the Japanese native speaker will be very confused. I live in Japan and work a job where I speak Japanese pretty much exclusively to older Japanese people and this was my lived experience. Even when I said grammatically correct things, if it was not the usual way Japanese people would say it, Japanese people would be baffled by what. Lots of people compare English to Japanese, but English native speakers are used to a far larger variety of pronunciation and sentences than Japanese native speakers.
Been learning pitch accent like sign langauge which is really fun. like for hair i put my hand on my head and salute, then I put my hand down by my chest for paper and then I lower my hands to the side in a bowing motion. the angle of my hand is what which pitch is. all the while I say the words in the right pitch. safe to say I look pretty ridiculous when studying lol
I kind of agree however Japanese do not think that way… especially because in standard Japanese the language in discussion is NOT precise, it is vague… due to politeness. Therefore tge only way a japanese is sure to know what you mean is through pitch.Apart from obvious social situations like hashi when eating at a restaurant…. a japanese will smile at you, not say anything or in some cases praise you, but think you are a total idiot. Amongst friends though you would be correct, pitch isnt important because the japanese being used is more informal, even slang and friends really wont care what you sound like. Ive lived here in Japan for 32 years now, so I feel I can speak on this topic with a high degree of confidence and experience. Also Europeans, especially Italians will go out of their way to try and understand you. Not so much Japanese people who simply enjoy being amused.
Yes, context is incredibly important. I've never asked for お箸一膳 at Lawson and got a bridge. But when I say レジ袋入らないです with the wrong pitch, the cashier will sometimes reply はい２枚.I've been told that some people listen to the pitch accent and not the actual words. Combined with the fact that many people see a foreigner and think they hear English, even when you're speaking Japanese, IMO it's better to learn proper pitch accent. TLDR: I don't see a downside to learning pitch accent.
¡Gracias! He visto pocas personas que tienen una opinión en medio con respecto a este tema. Voy a meter la cuchara aquí basado en mi experiencia: Soy un hablante de nativo en español que enseña japonés. En español nuestras reglas de acento son pocas, casi no hay ninguna excepción, y si parece que la hay, en realidad es una regla específica, no varía de país a país ("transitó", "transito" y tránsito" significarán lo mismo y se tildan donde se tienen que tildar en España, México, Argentina, Costa Rica, Colombia, El Salvador, Cuba e incluso Chile.), y sí puede causar malentendidos si no se atiende. Pero este sistema de acentuación y tildes no existe en japonés, y eso no ayuda, menos el que varíe de zona a zona, por más que el acento tonal de Tokyo sea el estándar. En japonés siento que los malentendidos por acento tonal llegan a ser pocos. He tenido malentendidos por confundir vocal larga o corta, consonante doble o simple; す, つ y ず; ち vrs し que por acento tonal, del cual de hecho no recuerdo haber tenido un malentendido, y yo no he estudiado acento tonal con intensidad como sí lo he hecho con la gramática y los kanji. Y si ha habido una palabra que por el contexto no ha quedado clara... recurro a hablar del kanji que usa esa palabra que termina por desambiguarla (me sorprende que haya personas que piensan que el acento tonal es más útil que el kanji, ¡o sea...!). No obstante, Sí es importante, eso sí, saber las reglas básicas de entonación de oraciones o sintagmas y algunas básicas de acento tonal: saber por ejemplo que si quieres hacer una pausa, hazla después de las partículas, asegúrate de que la entonación baje en las partículas y después de los verbos (excepto si haces una pregunta), que la primera mora (digamos que "sílaba" aunque no es exactamente lo mismo) y la segunda tengan el acento opuesto, que no hay subidas y bajadas como sí pasa en español. Casi siempre les digo a mis estudiantes que si les cuesta mantener la entonación "plana" que tiene el japonés, que pronuncien las palabras como si fueran esdrújulas o sobreesdrújulas, y no graves (que es una costumbre automática que les he detectado a los hispanohablantes cuando están empezando a aprender japonés), curiosamente este truco ayuda a que la entonación se parezca más a la japonesa y que el acento caiga en las partículas. Tener una pobre entonación de sintagmas y de oraciones va a afectar automáticamente el acento tonal, pero curiosamente lo inverso puede no ocurrir. Es una buena idea advertirle a los estudiantes que el acento tonal existe, pero no hace falta enfocarse demasiado en ello si no es la prioridad del estudiante. Y he visto que si uno está constantemente oyendo media en japonés (podcast, conversaciones, blogs de japoneses nativos haciendo cosas, anime, videojuegos, etc) ayuda a interiorizar pasivamente una buena parte del acento tonal y a reproducirlo con una precisión digamos satisfactoria para que te entiendan, salvo que una persona tenga sordera a los acentos o a alguna parte fonética de los idiomas (yo por ejemplo, y por efectos de mi autismo, me cuesta captar y reproducir tonos [como los de mandarín] y vocales más allá de las 5 en español o japonés [de ahí que tenga problemas con el inglés]).
It seems like matching stress placement with high vs low pitch would be a good segue into describing the manner in which pitch accents operate. The example you gave of “háshi” vs “hashí” sounded very similar to stress placement systems in languages which rely on stress to distinguish potential homophones. The two operate in a similar manner (if the pitch accent only distinguishes two pitches). I think this would be a useful corollary for introducing the concept. It also seems [to me] that one of the barriers for English speakers is our tendency to reduce the vowels of unstressed syllables towards a schwa. Once the speaker unlearns this habit, the effect of stress placement becomes much more similar in application to that of pitch accents. (Obviously the ore is still a difference; I was merely saying it can be a helpful way conceptulizing the process for a non-native speaker) English verbs, for instance, exhibit this distinction from corresponding homophonic nouns or adjectives: “condúct” (verb) vs “cónduct” (noun) “convérse” (verb) vs “cónverse” (adjective) “refúse” (verb) vs “réfuse” (noun) ~(plus dialectal alteration between voicing on final [s]) In fact, there is even a tendency for English speakers to unconciously alter their pitch in such settings. Anyway, this was a very interesting video. Much love from America!
this conversation always facinates me because the actual "study" process is so minimal. its like maybe a couple hours of upfront training your perception and then like a lot of exposure which you should be getting anyway if you are studying the language. the people arguing against it are just bitter and ignorant.
I often take the position that accents are the spice of life. If everybody sounded the same it would be boring. I can, for example, tell that the Metaron is not a native English speaker. Is that a problem? No, because native speakers in the US have a hard enough time saying my native state of Oregon correctly.
In English there are so many homophones that it's surprising that any English speakers would doubt the ability of context to do the work. We even have jokes that point out the silliness of it. What do you get when you drop a piano on a military base? A flat major
In Japanese, there are the Tokyo pitch accent, which is taught as part of Standard Japanese, and the regional pitch accents, such as Kansai, Hiroshima, Yamagata, Hakata, Hokkaido, Kagoshima, etc. Most Japanese speak with a pitch accent influenced by their regional dialect, if they did not grow up in Tokyo Metro. So I would say that while it's important to know about pitch accents, it's more important to know context.
That is ture that a prefect pitch would give a better account yet from my experience most Japanese don't like when a foreigners has a prefect accent as it gets rid off that cuteness for them.
As a fellow linguist and Japanese professor, I do not prioritize so-called "standard" Japanese pitch over 共通語 (kyootsuugo--"the common language") which has regional pitch differences. Just as "standard" Tokyo pitch is not enforced on Japanese children throughout Japan when they are educated, though they do learn standard grammar, it doesn't make sense to me that non-native speakers should have to sound like Tokyoites. I am glad that my Japanese reflects my history in Japan, which was mostly in Kyushu (Miyazaki prefecture), where I learned to speak 共通語 (kyootsuugo "the common language) and local language used in the city where I lived. And, when I moved to Tokyo, no one batted an eyelash about my Miyazaki pitch, which then, over time, blended to a hybrid of Tokyo and Miyazaki pitch. I think it is beautiful that our accents in native and learned languages reflect our lived histories. Our language embodies who we spend time with, where we live, etc. In Japan people often ask me if I grew up there, so I know my Japanese sounds natural, but nobody thinks I'm from Tokyo. And, I have no desire to sound like a Tokyo native. As a linguist, I value all language varieties. And, in hiring Japanese professors at my university, I am glad to say that we do not discriminate based on their Japanese pitch accents. We have professors from different parts of Japan who have different accents--some who use Tokyo pitch and some who do not, depending on where they are from, and from different parts of the US who have different histories in Japan, with their own various ways of using pitch in Japanese that blend beautifully with their own different accents carried along with them from their different Englishes. I love this richness. :)
Compared to tones in languages like Mandarin or Vietnamese, pitch accents aren't that important. The main thing pitch accents do is make you sound like a native speaker. I think some people that are pro-pitch accents come to think that pitches functions exactly like tones which they are kinda are but kinda not. They are interesting though and when you learn japanese words you may learn the pitch accent without realizing it.
As someone who is not trained in Japanese the pitch accent seem to be like any other accent. There's a certain accent that's considered standard Japanese like in let say General American English but just like in American English depending on the region the accent might change. For people who come to English from a foreign language one can still speak fluently in English yet still carry the accent of your mother tongue. My mother tongue is Spanish and in Spanish we diferentiate words based on accentuation of syllables which is where the á on words come from. They are there to mark where the stress of a syllable and words do change depending on where you put the accent with pronunciation rules explaining how a word it said in case of no accent. It's a concept that's hard for me to explain in English but it's a REALLY important part of Spanish and if you don't master that you will sound foreign.
As a Spanish native speaker who teaches Japanese, I say it: our stressed accent is not the same as the pitch accent in Japanese. De hecho, diría que en español sí que es mucho más importante el acento de intensidad del español que el acento tonal en japonés. También, esta es una característica que curiosamente no varía no importa qué dialecto del español hables: "transitó", "transito" y tránsito" significarán lo mismo y se tildan donde se tienen que tildar en España, México, Argentina, Costa Rica, Colombia, El Salvador, Cuba e incluso Chile. Esto no va a variar, y acentuar incorrectamente sí puede causar malos entendidos. En japonés no es una característica tan estable (Metatron justo explica que varía de región en región) y no causa muchos malentendidos como sí errar con otras características del idioma. No ayuda tampoco el hecho de que no tengan un sistema de tildes como sí lo tenemos en español que nos facilita mucho las cosas. Volviendo a lo primero que dije, viera usted que sí son diferentes. En español siempre hay una sílaba que resalta sobre las otras, pero en japonés no suele ser el caso. A veces escucharás que todas las sílabas (en realidad, moras) de una palabra o una parte de ellas suenan altas o agudas y otras bajas o graves. En general, se puede describir como que el acento y entonación japonesas hacen parecer que las oraciones suenan "planas", en tanto que en español hay "subidas" y "bajadas". De hecho, pienso que en japonés es más importante dominar las reglas esenciales (y sorprendemente simples) de la entonación de las oraciones o al menos de los sintagmas (sujeto, objeto directo, complemento indirecto; complemento circunstancial de lugar, tiempo, instrumento, compañía, etc) que el acento tonal. Por supuesto, es importante hacer consciencia de que el acento tonal existe y enseñar quizás lo más básico posible, pero ya dependerá del estudiante si quiere profundizar en eso o no.
To be honest I don't care too much about pitch accent. I remember only one case that pitch accent was needed in JLPT. It was in a listening question, in order to distinguish between 隔週 and 各週. To make things more complicated, pitch accent is different between regional dialects of Japan. A Japanese once told me that I sounded like a native speaker, but with a strange regional accent. For those who want to master the pitch accent and other peculiarities of (standard) Japanese pronunciation, there is the NHK's 日本語アクセント辞典.
This is one of those things where, if you happen to be a musician or native speaker of a tonal language, it comes naturally. If not, you need to be told it exists and it matters, but then *acquire* it, not "learn" it, just like the rest of the language. Trying to teach pitch accent is like teaching a list of grammar rules and a list of vocabulary. People do it. They make a lot of money off it. They even think it's the right way to learn. But their students don't actually improve until they go out and do the same stuff they'd have had to do without the classes in the first place: namely listen and read a tonne of the target language and hear countless examples of it in real situations.
From what I've gathered, Pitch Accent is an aspect you learn for the sake of the listener rather than for your sake (as the student). Sure, most native speakers will be able to understand you however you're requiring more effort on their part to ensure they're not misunderstanding you. May be fine if it's a one-off conversation while ordering or asking for directions but as kind and patient as someone may be, they may still get fatigued having to speak with you for prolonged periods of time.
Let me see if this analogy works - does English also have a “pitch accent”? Without pitch accent we can be understood, but it may sound weird and difficult to understand for a native speaker and sound like those aliens in the movie “galaxy quest”
English has word stress, and different Englishes can vary in word stress. In American English we say VEGetable. In Indian English (oh, I hope I remember this correctly) I think they say vegeTAble. We understand each other just fine.
Tonari no kyaku wa yoku kaki ku kyaku da. The neighbor's guest is a guest who eats a lot of [persimmons|oysters]. "Kaki" has different meanings depending on the accent, and both can be eaten. I've been in Portugal and Brazil; in one place they call it "dióspiro", and in the other they call it "caqui". Put them together and you get Diospyros kaki, which is the scientific name.
In this case You could either say toNARI NO KYAKU WA YOku kaKI KUu kyaKU DA と／なりのきゃくはよ＼くか／きく＼うき／ゃくだ 隣の客はよく柿食う客だ The neighbor's guest eats a lot of persimmons Or toNARI NO KYAKU WA YOku KAki KUu kyaKU DA と／なりのきゃくはよ＼く／か＼き／く＼うき／ゃくだ 隣の客はよく牡蠣食う客だ The neighbor's guest eats a lot of oysters Or Even toNARI NO KYAKU WA YOku kaKI/KAki KUu kyaku da (ending with a final low pitch, but it wouldn't change the meaning in both cases)
A word like “spirits” is not a great example, because all usages have the same pronunciation. With two words with the same pronunciation but different meaning, like spirits, yes it’s effortless to understand which is meant based on context. But as for the same word with different meanings AND different pronunciations, it breaks my brain for a second when they’re confused. Like, take the two pronunciations of content (i.e. CONtent, like subject matter, or conTENT, like a satisfied feeling). If someone said to me “I’m feeling CONtent” it’d take me a minute to understand, even though English is my first language. Likewise, if someone said “I don’t like that kind of conTENT”, I’d be mighty confused for a minute until my brain puzzled out the speaker’s intention. So, I’m thinking “spirits” is a very inaccurate analogy. In English, stress is very important. Yes, perhaps someone with incorrect stresses could be understood by a English first language speaker, but it takes real effort. Similarly, my second language is a pitched language and it’s a real strain to understand what people are saying if the pitch is off. Sure, it can be done, because context and logic… but it’s makes listening noticeably harder than need be.
Sure but foreigners ALWAYS mess up words like content or console or combat and the like and it never gives any problem whatsoever in conversation. Think of a French accent speaking English for instance. Literally every syllable receives the wrong stress. Or an Italian stressing the wrong syllables. Still not a problem. It’s just an accent we accept. Yet in Japanese some people think it’s not acceptable to have an accent which is weird. It’s fine to have an accent, just like it’s fine to strive to lose as much as possible of that accent if that’s what you like. It’s a case by case
@@metatronacademy I didn’t express an opinion on whether learners should try to learn good pitch. I just said that your analogy wasn’t entirely accurate. But if you’d like to know my opinion… In your response, I really like the way you’re accepting differences and leaving room for individual perspectives. I hope you’ll consider this perspective. I believe that, for me, learning the language as closely as possible to how it was meant to be spoken is the most respectful way to engage with another culture. Unless we are already a part of said culture, I feel that language doesn’t belong to us no matter how well we learn it. To my mind, we are a guest in that language, and the right thing for guests to do is learn what constitutes good manners and then apply them. After all, what I (as an outsider) think is honoring a language might not actually be what that culture thinks is honoring that language, eh? So I try to abide by their customs as a matter of respect. Their house rules when I’m in their house, so to speak. But ya know what else? My opinion, as an outsider, doesn’t count for anything. 😂 I think the only people who should get any say in how a language is learned are the people whose culture that language comes from. Full stop. This is especially important with cultural and racial minorities, I feel. I’m seeing it as a matter of cultural sensitivity and respect. It seems to me that oftentimes North American and European people have a way of thinking they can take something (like a language) from another culture and do whatever they want with what they’ve taken as if it belongs to them, instead of honoring the language and its speakers by learning it according to the customs of the culture it originally came from. Quite a sense of entitlement, sometimes. For me, I think if an outside culture, especially one that might have a history of colonization and/or cultural appropriation, wants to take something from a culture, especially a minority culture or historically persecuted culture, they should be very careful to do so in the way that is defined by and controlled by that culture. So, in the case of the Japanese language… How do Japanese people want non-Japanese people to approach learning their language in the most respectful way possible? I obvs can’t answer that. But that’s my perspective in a nutshell. Thanks for considering my viewpoint.
@@FeralMina Believe it or not I agree with you when it comes to my personal approach to learning foreign languages. I always strive to do my very best, as a form of respect, to speak the language as close to a native as possible, even though that's a very challenging goal and I often fail. With that being said, I don't think every person has to necessarily do that. Only if you wish to also because let's be honest, not everyone can even hear tones or pitches. The second part I strongly disagree with. When you say: "I think the only people who should get any say in how a language is learned are the people whose culture that language comes from. Full stop." That's profoundly wrong, BUT I might be misunderstanding what you actually mean. Let me elaborate. People who speak a language natively do not know how that language is learnt as a second language. They have no clue. What they say could be completely wrong when it comes to language learning, if that's what you meant. If what you meant was how important it is to learn the pitches vs tones etc then sure, their perspective is definitely the most culturally important one, since it's their language after all. So if that's what you meant, the cultural aspect of it, the actual way it makes a native feel when you learn the pitches and tones and all that, then I would agree with you 100%.
@@metatronacademy Yes, your second interpretation was correct. To be clear, I’m definitely not saying that first language speakers necessarily make good teachers or can somehow be inherently good judges of teaching methods; we both know how wrong that can be! 🙄😆 I was moreso saying that first language speakers of minority languages/cultures should be honored as the sole caretakers of their own language/culture (i.e. the idea of culture and language as intellectual property), especially so regarding minority languages or cultures and, as such, they should have the final say in what exactly is a respectful way to interact with their language and culture, or even to decide if their language or culture should be learned by outsiders at all. For context, if it matters, especially around my views on learning tone or pitch accent, I am a learner of a endangered tonal language that is indigenous to North America. As someone who is not a first speaker of that language, it is my place to honor both those who are first speakers and the language/culture itself by doing my best to honor the language - not as I personally think it *should* be honored, but in the ways that are culturally appropriate, as define by the culture itself. Where I come from, I would have no right to come into that space and behave however I want and then dictate how they should interpret my actions, you know? Like, I don’t do what I think should make them feel respected and then expect them to feel respected; I learn what they actually find respectful and then do THAT instead, ya know? So that’s how things are where I come from. In said language, the first speakers are nearly all elderly and there are far more learners than first speakers, so you can imagine what a devastating impact we learners could have on language and cultural preservation if we’re not careful. For example, if learners aren’t being careful to learn the use of tone accurately (as well as acquiring the ways of thinking and being that are the foundation of the language), experts say that the tonal aspects (and other qualities that are very foreign to English speakers, like classificatory verbs and other culturally-driven aspects of the grammar) in our language might become extinct within a generation or two, even if we do manage to save the rest of the language. That’s huge. There are other big impacts as well that may come from having so few first speakers, especially relative to the quantity of learners. So we learners are positioned to decimate the language if we’re not careful, whereas with other languages (like Japanese) that might not be concerning at all. I suppose if learners of Japanese don’t want to learn pitch accent or the cultural norms around the language or whathaveyou, for whatever reason, at worst it might be taken as rude or ignorant, or their Japanese might end up sounding unnatural in content or pronunciation, or it might make them harder to understand by first speakers. (Or maybe no one will mind at all, what do I know? Nothing.) But ultimately Japanese is a thriving language with millions of speakers, it will easily endure a few careless hacks. Not all languages are sitting so pretty, as it were. So maybe that helps fill out the picture of where I’m coming from. Thanks for listening, and have a lovely day!
In my opinion, learners should be aware of what pitch accent is. The absolute basics are pretty simple. They should take 20 minutes to learn the patterns. It really shouldn't take that long to hear the basic patterns. From there they can decide to pursue it further. Just being aware of what it is and being able to hear it goes a long way especially with immersion based methods.
How does pitch accent work in conjunction with vowel devoicement? Like, how can you tell the pitch of a devoiced vowel? It doesn't even make sense to me.
I have never studied Japanese. I know what tones in Chinese are and I have no confusion about that, but I really stuggle to understand how is a pitch different from a stress/tonic accent. 🤔
The honest answer is that it is a bit pedantic. But the main point about it is that each word has a "normal" pitch tone. Think of it like how you spell a word. The pitch tone is like a verbal spelling of it. But unlike spelling, the pitch tone doesn't contain a lot of information in that if you get it wrong it doesn't garble the meaning. Each word has this pitch spelling marker and most common words you will naturally pick it up as you will hear them often enough. But just because one word has one pitch tone spelling doesn't automatically mean similar looking words will have the exact same pitch spelling. That is why it is a bit pedantic. Because it is a forest for the trees moment.
Here are some examples of pitch accent-related videos Most teachers don't venture explaining or even mentioning it since it's all over the place and much more complicated than tones in Chinese for instance because pitch accent not only depends on a single word itself but also on other factors such as particles following the word, the conjugation of a verb, word combinations, it can depend on the role of the word (is it used as a noun or as an adverb, etc.), And it is highly irregular, like reaaaally irregular th-cam.com/video/S6bEqpoga2M/w-d-xo.htmlsi=71DF0WTXNXtev696 th-cam.com/video/mcMgaO1inNc/w-d-xo.htmlsi=1xuvUe1B5L3s7yHk th-cam.com/video/jcn2cpFdzz4/w-d-xo.htmlsi=TeAFrxCJSPfRX5Dm th-cam.com/video/khjLFgNMh4M/w-d-xo.htmlsi=DP72Qd5LFe4M-s7c
With Japanese pitch accent (actually strictly speaking Tokyo pitch accent, others may be different), the tone of each syllable doesn't matter. Only the location of the accent matters. The accent is marked by a drop from high to low pitch (usually called a 'downstep'). HL > first syllable is accented LH(L) second syllable is accented. LH(H) no syllable is accented. Those are the only possibilities. In Mandarin both syllables could have one of 4 tones for 16 possibilities.
Are native speakers really able to perceive and abide by all these rules in their own speech? Do they never forget how a particular conjugation changes the accent of a word, or how to say something with greater formality? Native English speakers make phonetic mistakes all the time. PREscription vs PERscription, DEtails vs deTAILS, adverTIZEment vs adverTIZment etc. and we don’t even have formal and informal register.
If your goal is to fool someone over the phone that you're native Japanese, learn pitch-accent. Sure, there are different systems of pitch-accent, but if you're inconsistent and mix them together, you're immediately tagged as foreign-sounding. Otherwise though, don't worry about it. You'll be understood. (But sound foreign).
On the phone people think I am Japanese, but they never think I am from Tokyo. Not learning Tokyo pitch is not a bit of a problem. :) I would guess that most people in Japan don't speak with Tokyo pitch, since only 10% of the people in Japan live there.
Isn't this just the same as when learning a language with non-systematic emphasis? Is it NECESSARY to learn the correct emphasis for every word? No. Does it make you sound better? Yes, of course.
Well articulated. Pitch accent is like the stress in the English. Technically you can ignore it and speak like a mad man, and people can still understand you. It might come weird to natives, and that's all.
Ignoring pitch accents doesn't make you sound like a madman. Some areas of Japan, actually, have no pitch accent. This is part of the beautiful regional differences of Japanese. :) I think what makes Japanese accents sound most natural is when foreign speakers can nicely do Japanese syllable (moraic) timing. Speaking Japanese with English stress-timing can be harder for Japanese people to parse. But, adults have huge variation in their ability to pronounce foreign languages, so there will always be L2 speakers with strong accents. And the world is richer for it, in my opinion.
You dont need to study pitch accent. But... keep in mind that languages develop things for a reason. Japanese still has pitch accent precisely because it has a smaller sound vocabulary and therefore more homophones. Also sounds very nice. But you dont need to know it to profitably enjoy the language.
In german we say 'umfahren", what means "to drive over something or somebody". And then there is "umfahren" what means "to drive around something or somebody" 😂
But isn’t there a little delay in the understanding from a native speaker if you speak to them without the pitch accent. I can only imagine that every native speaker is used to a certain rhythm in their language and if someone speaks off-rhythm it is still a bit harder to understand sometimes.
Pitch accents don't relate much to intelligibility. Intelligibility is more related to speaking grammatically and to the rhythm of speech, which in Japanese is syllable (mora)-timing.
It's like when you miss a tilde in written Spanish but it's very obvious, "me comi un pan" nobody honestly will ask wtf is a comi because it so obvious he meant comí. Context is king!
@@tanizaki wrong. in Spanish, we have accent and tilde. accent is the stress (marks the strong syllable and all words have it). tilde is the á,é,í,ó,ú marker on the vowels that appears if certain conditions are met.
I would imagine the reason why some Japanese language educators would say the pitch accent is important is because why teach incorrect syntax if you don't have to. Even if the context around the words would make it clear to a native speaker what is meant, you still wouldn't want to speak in constant unforced errors. It highlights to the native speaker that you are just learning the language and it'd be better to not communicate important things in a language both sides aren't fully fluent in. It's like reading broken English. Most English speakers can generally understand what is meant by the context, but it's just unneeded brain energy to spend if it can be said correctly to start with.
It is less than that. This isn't akin to broken English. It is more like some guy speaking to you in an accent. That is all it is. Of course there will always be people who want others to speak like them. In Japan my Pacific Northwest accent is considered to be among the best and easiest to learn. It is easier for them to differentiate between the sounds. Does that mean my accent is the single best one? Nope, but it is the one that they want to emulate.
@@NaishoTheNeko An accent doesn't change the meaning of words. Without the pitch some words would be the wrong ones. Which is the comparison to broken English. As I said, that wrongness doesn't make it less understandable with the appropriate context, but at the same time it still takes some amount of thought on the person listening to replace the incorrect word for the correct one and anybody would prefer not to do that if they didn't have to.
@@pacmonster066 It still isn't like broken English. Your example is far too strong. There are even places in Japan with no pitch accent! All people are arguing over is whether the Tokyo pitch accent is worth studying.
@@kekeke8988 I think you're confusing what a dialect is from an accent. Your accent is *how* you say words. The pronunciation of the words. It doesn't change the meaning of those words. An Australian, Irish, English, and somebody from Texas all will have different accents but the words they're saying all mean the same thing. And while it's called the pitch "accent" really it's just the way those words are meant to be said aloud. Different areas of Japan have different regional dialects or accents but they all do the pitch as it's how the language grammar works.
My university Japanese teachers had very questionable pronunciation. I agree that as a learner you don't have to learn pitch accent, but if you're a university teacher I feel like you should sound as close to native as possible. Because otherwise the students might imitate you and it's gonna create habits that can be hard to fix if wanted. With all the money we pay for our education I expect something better.
Most languages in the world have tonal queues. In portuguese we have words like Côco (coconut) and Cocô (Shit), only diference here is pitch pronounciation, tonal syllable being in different "ô" each time. nobody says portuguese is a tonal language because of that. Japanese is not at all tonal, though it must've had some tonality in the past. Japanese is a syllabale based (consonant+vowel) language, with very few single consonants, and most of the time they have a tonic syllabe to diferentiate. another similar example in portuguese the word Cágado (small turtle) and the word Cagado (a passive verb meaning to be shat). nobody gets those mistaken, and there are millions more of examples. Japanese have to accept they have a stress tonic syllabe system now, that tonality has been forgotten in their language.
Plus, in most everyday aspects of the language, they themselves ignore pitch accent completely. Mostly they only use it when they're correcting people.
@@ReavinBlue Sim, nós conseguiríamos compreender pelo contexto, mas pode zoar um pouco ridículo nesses exemplos 😂 Talvez seja similar com "anno" vs "ano" em italiano, ou "penne" vs "penne"
@@ReavinBlue Careful here! Tônico and tonal are not the same thing. Sílaba tônica is typically translated into English as a "stressed syllable". I've seen "tonic syllable" as well, but I prefer "stressed syllable" specifically to avoid the confusion between "tonic" and "tonal". "Tonic" simply means "emphasized, higher in intensity". "Tonal" however refers to "having different tones". As you've shown in your examples, the accent in Portuguese relies on the position and intensity of the stressed syllable, rather than on the tone that is applied to that syllable, so it's a stress-timed language (Portuguese from Europe) or a syllable-timed language (Portuguese from Brazil). Tonal languages, however, rely on the position and intensity of a stressed syllable, but also on the *tone* that's applied to it. My native language Serbo-Croatian is an example of a tonal language. When we pronounce a stressed syllable, we also apply a tone that modifies the syllable during its pronunciation. So in words like lûk (arch) and lȕk (onion), the position of the emphasis is the same, the vowel is the same (pronounced the same as the Portuguese vowel 'u'), but the tone isn't. In the first word, the tone is long and it first goes slightly up and then falls. In the second word, the tone is short and starts for a split-second at a higher pitch, but drops immediately. The difference between Serbo-Croatian and Japanese is that in a tonal language like mine, the tone of the stressed syllable changes as we pronounce that syllable (the tone goes up and down on the same syllable). In Standard Japanese, however, that's not the case. Each syllable maintains its own tone (high, low or flat) throughout the pronunciation of the syllable (the tone doesn't go up or down on the same syllable). That's why Japanese is a pitch-accent language, but not a tonal language. The term "tonal language" is reserved for languages like Serbo-Croatian and Mandarin, where there is this upward or downward tone change on a single syllable.
So true about pitch accents. I worked in Japan for seven years. When eating at a Japanese restaurant, and I asked for "hashi", the waiter never brought me a bridge. However, my Noble Metatron, you just gave me a great idea. My Japanese wife's birthday is coming up. After telling her I'll get her some "hana" for her birthday, I think I'll go to the local joke shop pick up a dozen plastic noses! 🤣
Please share photos of her reaction. 🤭
Is divorce a thing in Japan ? 😅
it'd be funny if they created a dessert called the Hashi and it was a pastry made in the shape of a bridge just for this.
@@MrRabiddogg YES!!!
I'll even send photos of me from the emergency room! LOL@@sarahrosen4985
Fluent speaker here.
I used to kind of care about the pitch, until I started to live with my partner.
He is an awa-ben speaker, and I have been so affected by that accent in an unconscious way that people have started to told me I sound weird ever since.
My Japanese is now a mix of standard Japanese with Awa-ben, so now I don't care at all.
As I grew up in Japan, Japanese was my first language. So I speak with a pitch accent (albeit sounding like a gaijin) as it had come naturally. I even didn't know about it until I got interested in languages. In my opinion, one should just mimic what native speakers do rather than studying it in detail.
I have once heard an Italian speaking Japanese who is living in Japan for decades. His pronunciation of vowels and consonants are spot on (it always helps that the two languages share a similar sound inventory). However, he does not speak with a pitch accent, he speaks most words with the accent on the penultimate syllable as if it were Italian. So I had to listen very well to even get a grasp of what he's talking about. So yeah, if someone would ask me, pitch accent is important
I think the Italian you met was having troubles more with sentence intonation or even sintagma intonation than with pitch accent. The former one is even more important than pitch accent, interestingly more basic, and of course it would make communication more difficult if not learnt. What you described is a person having troubles with sentence intonation, and I know of this because I'm a native Spanish speaker who teaches Japanese, and I've seen this problem a lot with beginner learners, given that Spanish and Italian are based on stressed accent. Of course, having troubles with sentence intonation automatically will affect pitch accent, but the inverse may not occur. Thus, pitch accent in the end is worth at least the basics, but not that important. Yet sintagma or sentence intonation IS important.
I had more misunderstandings by confusing the intonation of a sentence, "chi" with "shi", long vowels vrs short vowels, presence or absence of glotal stop (which is represented in romaji as double consonants), than with pitch accent. Really, I don't remember having misunderstandings because wrong pitch accents.
Yes, as a Japanese guy I can understand 100％ with wrong pitch accent. But if you speak with perfect pitch accent I would say "wow your Japanese is really good!"
つまり、いつも通り「日本語上手ですね」って言われます。もう嘘かどうか計れないからあんまり変わらないでしょｗ
@@junfour いや、ピッチアクセントを磨いたら「上手ですね」より詳しく褒められるｗ
『うわ、「上手です」と言うとなんか失礼だろうと思うぐらい日本語ができる。』と言ってくれる素敵な人もいるからね。
「上手ですね」以上のランクがちゃんとある。
Just teaching that "it exists, but you'll still be understood" should be enough for them to pay attention to it when they're ready to go there (if they want). That should be the bare minimum.
Learning about the basic rules should be done, but not putting too much emphasis on it unless the student is ready for it.
The impression I had was that some skills might be asked only if you wanted to be a TV speaker or be in business.
I majored in Japanese at Ca'Foscari a few years ago, we were taught pitch accent by one of the native professors on the first week. But we were rarely corrected on our pronunciation, even things like dropping the H, so many of the students still had heavy italian accents by year 3.
I think at least being aware of pitch accent is important at a beginner level, so an individual student can choose whether of not they want to put time in to learn it.
When I learn a language, I want to pronounce words as close as possible to a native speaker. So naturally I also study pitch accent in Japanese
I minored in Japanese in the early 90's - 6 semesters with all native teachers. The weird thing is that none of them even mentioned pitch accent - I only found out about it several years after I graduated. I had a vague sense while learning it that there was a sort of melody to the endings, which I tried to emulate, but I had no idea it was standardized. I think maybe the reasoning was that it might overwhelm foreign learners who already had to deal with kana, kanji, the grammar, etc. and also maybe because it varies based on different dialects
That because they are happy to have people generally wanting to learn the language this pitch accent nonsense is really like well I can speak/read/write at a college level now how can I can I get hired at NHK
Same for me. I wish they did tell me to be honest. Luckly I found out in Japan.
For 1 it isn't really "standardized". The pitch accent people learn is based on the Tokyo accent, but like any accent, every other place in Japan has a slightly different one. The only "correct" accent is one that people can understand and most learners who engage with native speakers or at least native level material will pick up the accent naturally. I've rarely met anyone who just has a completely awful pitch accent even among people who don't study it directly. Plus, it's kind of expected that foreigners will have foreign accents in any language.
I majored in japanese a few years ago and we were taught pitch accent by one of the native teachers on the first week
@@coolbrotherf127it's like saying if you don't speak RP then you don't speak English correctly
I appreciate this video as it's one of the most reasonable I've seen on the topic! There are too many anti-pitch accent videos out there that just dismiss it as stupid, useless, or unnecessary. I'm not kidding, they seriously use those words! What a bizarre way to refer to something that is part of the culture and speech of the language you're learning or teaching.
As someone how's native language uses pitch accent (Swedish) I completely agree with your point about context. Sure it can sound a little funny if the pitch is wrong, but I'll still understand you.
Is it true that the Finnish usually speak swedish without using pitch?
@@VieiraFi the Swedish dialects native to Finland doesn't have pitch accent, yes.
@mechupaunhuevon7662 I meant the other way around, but I think I was misremembering what I heard. So it's the swedes who live in Finland who do that, not the Finnish who learn the language as a second language, gotcha
@mechupaunhuevon7662 Yeah, I suppose if their mother tongue doesn't have pitch accent (like my mother doesn't for instance) it's harder for them to do it.
Have you noticed if swedes or Serbians have an easier time with learning Japanese pitch as compared to Americans, Italians etc who don't have pitch in their languages?
@mechupaunhuevon7662 very interesting. Thank you!
A lot of teachers don't try to teach it because of how many students either can't hear pitch differences, or find it too overwhelming and thus demotivating. But it is important if you want to sound... Well, good. And it's not really that tough. I've been learning Japanese for about 7 years and I'm proud of having good pitch. The hardest part is learning to listen out for it. Then it's like any other part of the language in that you use study and immersion over time to learn the rules and pick up how different words are said by paying close attention. It's really very rewarding and poor pitch accent starts to sound really bad when you know the difference.
It’s both. Pitch accent exists but it’s not a necessity. Thank you for the right answer. When I taught preschoolers English in Japan if I was super picky about making sure they pronounced the R’s or L’s perfectly it would have overwhelmed the students. Having a foreign accent isn’t a huge barrier for communication. For me I didn’t worry too much about pitch accent… I attainted moderate fluency and then I moved here and once I heard it year after year you sort of pick it up naturally. It depends on your goal, innit
I agree on everything EXCEPT that you pick it up naturally. You don’t. If you think you did you are over estimating yourself. I’m not trying to hate, I say this because that’s what I thought about me and I was wrong. I needed to study it. No one can pick it up naturally except a native.
@@metatronacademy Would you naturally pick up tones if you lived in China?
@@metatronacademy I’m not saying it comes naturally but you can hear the different in pitch easily. Maybe if you don’t know pitch accent exists at all you wouldn’t but if you know that the difference is there for a reason I think it’s not unreasonably difficult. Also I’ve been here for 18 years and knew of pitch accent from the start so maybe my unconscious bias is kicking in… I’ve never studied it extensively but I don’t think it’s impossible to hear the difference unless you’ve studied the crap out of it.
@@VieiraFi without any training I doubt it. With good training I’d say mostly yes in the case or Mandarin, but it needs to be high level training. There really is a difference between how tones work and how pitch works. I personally found the tones in Mandarin easier than the pitch in Japanese. Cantonese would be a whole different level of discussion.
@@nofosho3567 Oh I agree you can surely hear the differences, I just don’t think you can pick it up and replicate it by ear. The reason is because you will naturally develop the incorrect structures or pattern and you will start to apply the wrong pitch patters to the wrong words because they sound similar or have a similar number of mora. It’s impossible to avoid.
As a finnish person I can say that finnish language has many words that have different meanings but hardly ever there has been a missunderstanding.
Here's a small example word "Kuusi" it can mean many things such as number six, it can mean a fir tree.
Or a word "maa" it can mean many things such as Soil, land, country, earth, or ground.
Thank you! I am 5 months into learning Japanese. I don't mind sounding foreign. It will be pretty obvious to a Japanese person anyway when I have the vocabulary of a toddler.
And probably because you look foreign. That'll give it away before anything else
As my teacher said: being understood is what really matters
Lithuanian, Latvian, Norwegian, Swedish, Slovenian, Serbian also have the pitch accent, usually two, sometimes there, as did ancient Greek. In many of these languages there are many word pairs that can be distinguished only by the right pitch accent. I am a native speaker of lithuanian and can testify to the importance of the tones in that archaic indogermanic language.
One of the things I really like in your approach is the practicality of considering different students' profiles. I used to study Japanese when I came across pitch accent through Dogen videos, which made me freeze 'cause I had this perfect pronunciation obsession. It took me a couple of years to get back to it.
The pitch accent people learn is based on the Tokyo accent, but like any accent, every other place in Japan has a slightly different one. The only "correct" accent is one that people can understand and most learners who engage with native speakers or at least native level material will pick up a more natural accent over time.
I've rarely met anyone who just has a completely awful pitch accent even among people who don't study it directly. Plus, it's kind of expected that foreigners will have foreign accents in any language. Pretty much every European English speaker has "foreign" accent to me lol.
I definitely feel like for anyone who has the goal to become fluent in speaking Japanese, they should at least study for basics and be aware that it exists and how to identify it. That'll go a long way in keeping them from sound very strange when speaking with an actual Japanese person.
I want to study pitch accent mainly because it sound beautiful this way. I am studying it as a Beginner. I also kind of mess with the sounds in my head internally as I process it.
I addressed this to my guide the exact moment I set foot on Japan. She honestly seemed to not understand what I was asking... 😅
No seriously, Japanese seems to rely way more on context rather than on pitch
I studied Japanese in college and was taught not to focus on pitch accent at that stage, and to wait until you go to Japan and then pick up the local pitch accent by listening to people around you, rather than learning the Tokyo-based pitch accent and having to possibly adjust to something very different when you get to Japan. Doing it this way and then going to Kansai enabled me to pick up that pitch accent without any interference from the often-opposite Tokyo one. I say let your Japanese community be your guide and learn to speak like the people around you do. Obviously you aren't going to want to overdo local dialect words, which will sound strange from a non-native if you overdo it, but pitch accent is something I was happy to pick up from the locals.
That's great to know! I do believe you've touched upon pitch accent previously, but I'm glad for an indepth answer.
My language also is a language with a pitch accent and I had native Japanese teachers when learning so, this might have helped. I also remember that we were taught about the different pronunciations of はな as “flower” and “nose”. I kinda think that maybe the pitch accent during the homonyms situations could be taught. Even if it’s understandable from the context it helps to speak properly.
In an anime I was watching (Elfen Lied) there´s a character who is called Tanikaze Nagate. The surname is always pronounced taníkaze, but the name sometimes is pronounced nagáte (most of the time) and sometimes nágate.
Hello there my good sir, as someone that has been learning Russian for 2 years. I know that there's no pitch accent in the language, I do know what it's like to learn a language completely opposite of your native language. I admire your videos, you are a wonderful person, thank you.
Thanks for approaching this topic, I was thinking about asking you about this. Recently I've been meaning to return to Japanese study. Please do some vids on pitch accent.
I'm not currently learning Japanese, but were I to start I'd definitely want to learn pitch accent. I'd feel self conscious potentially putting the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLABle
Waste of time until you are able to hold a real conversation and even then its highly questionable
@@southcoastinventors6583 let people study however they want in their own time
if they like studying pitch accent then it's not a waste of time
@@Akaykimuy but it is when you start out since as Metatron mention another layer of unnecessary level of complication when the most important think is to learn kana well. Simple to complex just like anything learned
Here are some examples of pitch accent-related videos
Most teachers don't venture explaining or even mentioning it since it's all over the place and much more complicated than tones in Chinese for instance because pitch accent not only depends on a single word itself but also on other factors such as particles following the word, the conjugation of a verb, word combinations, it can depend on the role of the word (is it used as a noun or as an adverb, etc.), And it is highly irregular, like reaaaally irregular
th-cam.com/video/S6bEqpoga2M/w-d-xo.htmlsi=71DF0WTXNXtev696
th-cam.com/video/mcMgaO1inNc/w-d-xo.htmlsi=1xuvUe1B5L3s7yHk
th-cam.com/video/jcn2cpFdzz4/w-d-xo.htmlsi=TeAFrxCJSPfRX5Dm
th-cam.com/video/khjLFgNMh4M/w-d-xo.htmlsi=DP72Qd5LFe4M-s7c
th-cam.com/video/k1dldCnYODM/w-d-xo.htmlsi=xxT4dcjcq9qQEyhE
th-cam.com/video/Dlo2lx-GFEQ/w-d-xo.htmlsi=AxlnGD_F-f_RhkGf
th-cam.com/video/FtHCyY57A_E/w-d-xo.htmlsi=xzBYhGX-YLVIeGDP
th-cam.com/video/uJv8PONh3sM/w-d-xo.htmlsi=Qr6R_6qxa0C87ZzU
th-cam.com/video/C6dOr5VFp30/w-d-xo.htmlsi=BC45CXPmi8elRFJw
th-cam.com/video/pnr2wj2wBiM/w-d-xo.htmlsi=9gebjQI_hUyWG641
th-cam.com/video/yWx_TYIHmhc/w-d-xo.htmlsi=onaV3gWfAl2JBXEg
th-cam.com/video/XCtbZS0xl0s/w-d-xo.htmlsi=DfairuNnVaEHwlsB
th-cam.com/video/u4CSzqZ3yJg/w-d-xo.htmlsi=rSywfzkEopS4xxf5
th-cam.com/video/EbTcLJP8SDw/w-d-xo.htmlsi=jHTOi4t2WvzH3S5N
th-cam.com/video/Mqz-I4f_XFI/w-d-xo.htmlsi=BWf5IwWpajyLQkvZ
I am so glad youtube recommended me your content, thankyou very much for your amazing job dear Metatron Sensei.
As someone studying Japanese and planning to live for some time in Nagasaki, hearing that they have a different pitch accent is news to me! I have been doing my best to have the Tokyo pitch accent but now I'm a bit interested in how they speak in Nagasaki, thank you for bringing this to my attention!
I mean there are lots of jokes about tokyo and kansai speakers not getting each other
Nagasaki will be different, but easy for anyone in the country to understand. Enjoy, and let Nagasaki language become your language. It's a beautiful thing!
Japanese already being a very context-dependent language, it's no surprise that they can adapt to a slightly faulty pronunciation... And that's not like homophones don't exist in english. Do you often confuse eight and ate in a sentence?
In french we have lots of perfectly identical homophones, no difference in stress or pitch at all, like sein - ceint - saint - sain - seing (breast - encircled - holy - healthy - signature) - yet apart from occasional puns, they won't be confused because there's always context around them:
"Elle a de beaux seins" (She has beautiful breasts) ; "Le château est ceint d'une muraille" (The castle is encircled by a wall) ; "C'est un lieu saint" (It is a holy place) ; "Je prends des repas sains" (I take healthy meals) ; "Il a mis son seing sur la page" (He put his signature on the page) for example.
@@Random98-ij8li Always the best
I spent years studying japanese when I was at the university. I absolutely loved the language, but eventually got frustrated with it exactly because of the pitch accent, and I think it was the main reason I stopped studying the language. Back then I couldn't find resources to learn it, nor had I even the proficiency to hear or reproduce the pitches correctly. They're much more subtle and also difficult to predict than in Swedish that I also used to study.
I think this is one of those "high context" vs "low context" cultures (and hence, languages) things. As Romance speakers we're somewhat used to a certain high level context, as does Japanese, so we we can understand the relative weight of a minor gramatical feature ("play it down" a little, if you want). But Germanic languages (and hence, most of native English speakers) tend to work on a low-context basis, so is easy for them to give pitch-accent the same importance other features have on-system, as for them if it exists it should be for something it adds to the communication.
Yet, swedish has pitch accent and some people in the comment section are mentioning that the situation is the same as with japanese
@@nootics Have you studied either?
Can we get a video on the ancient greeks pitch accent? It’s SO interesting! Great video as always!
What about their catching accent?
@@Mortablunt what?
wait what? can pitch accent be reconstructed to any level of precision? or do we have records telling us exactly how it was done
I'm asking because even at a single time different regions in Japan use different pitch accents, that indicates it varies even faster than vowels, so reconstruction must be terrible
@@MooImABunny well we have a general idea of the general flow of the pitch accent in 5th century Attic Greek. We don’t exactly know what the exact difference in pitch between a raised vowel would be over a non raised, but we do know, for example, which vowel would be raised.
Learning pitch-accent mean you show some level of seriousness towards your language target
Yes you can speak broken Japanese to the native and they'll say 日本語上手ですね to you
Or they'll say "How long you've been studied Japanese" if you're studied pitch-accent
On a related matter, do you think that fluency in Italian is reliant upon the student learning all of the correct accompanying hand gestures?
Only if you get the appropriate context to not end ridiculed or stabbed or shot at
surprisingly good video, really liked the point on context, it's something that MvJ either doesn't understand or is lying about when he claims that the difference between 橋 and 箸 is as important as 橋 vs 歌詞 lol
Context fixes a lot of things.. on the other hand, my wife (Japanese) and some others have started claiming that my Japanese pronunciation (I'm not fluent) is vastly better than before. In fact my pronunciation is just as it was in the past, the only difference is that I have become more conscious about pitch. But to those mentioned it feels like my pronunciation of the language has improved.
Another data point is my own native language.. it's not as pitch-based as Japanese, though it does exist to separate certain words (with sometimes three different pitches, sometimes four, for a few specific words), but what we do have is intonation. And when I have problems immediately getting what foreigners are saying in my native language it's always caused by incorrect intonation (if the sentence is otherwise correct). I'm actually shocked by how often this happens, as I have interacted with non-native speakers for decades. But even for simple sentences I'm sometimes thrown off just because the intonation is wrong. My internal "filter" isn't triggered correctly and I don't get it, in real-time at least (I have tons of "filters" to slot in to decode the very many dialects of my language, and to decode other languages - first I hear gibberish, then the filter slots in and it gets clear - incorrect intonation sometimes make me stumble. On the other hand "incorrectly" pronounced "r"'s etc don't matter much).
I've studied Japanese since 2017. I would say i'm quite fluent. I've got a high score on n1, BJT, do business in japanese and live here with a japanese wife etc.
I've personally never studied beyond the basics of pitch accent, and I've also never had an issue with people misunderstanding me. In terms of accent I get told that I have quite a good accent and it's not like other native english speakers, maybe because i spoke italian growing up (still studying now, not super fluent).
In terms of being misunderstood I've had moments where it was on 同音異義語 (homophone) that are all 平板 (not having a specific pitch accent). for example, I almost started an argument with my wife by saying the word 矯正 (correction, of a flaw etc) but she had interpreted it as 強制 (compulsion,coercion). they are both pronounced the same way 'kyousei'
Just my little anecdote
Yeah while in university they never taught us pitch. we might have briefly talked about it but they always reiterated that Japanese is highly contextual.
The judgment for lack of perfect pronunciation is the result of an unrealistic purism created by the 'I'm better than you' types. I'm an Italian speaker with a French wife; and they are constantly on me about my 'horrible" French pronunciation. They correct my sounds constantly and I get so annoyed cause they obviously know what I said or meant. It's not like they don't understand, they do. They're just French ;o) If you don't say it they way they think you should, you're wrong.
Thank You very much for this video ! 😊
THANK YOU. I've been living in Japan for about 16 years and no restaurant server has ever brought me a bridge when I asked for chopsticks THANK HEAVENS.
Something that bothers me is how people are trying to make an entire science of pitch accent when even the Japanese themselves don't. In Spanish, as you know I'm sure, Metatron, accents are an exact science, the Spanish going as far has marking accents with a tilde. En italiano se hace lo mismo, ¿no es así? I spoke Spanish, then English, then Japanese, and in my opinion, pitch accent, is not really that different than accents in Spanish or stress accent in English. If you're already used to working with accents, then perceiving and producing Japanese pitch accent shouldn't be a problem.
English has stress, and I argue, it's own pitch accent. But neither is formally taught in schools. At least in my experience, no one told me there was a high-low pattern for "dessert" and a rising intonation for "desert." I just learned to say these words differently because they're two different words and people will get a chuckle if you use the wrong one. Still, I don't think there will ever be a misunderstanding at a restaurant where a waiter will bring a foreign customer some sand because they ordered a "desert." People will understand.
English has its own pitches. You sound "off" if your pitches/intonation aren't that of a native speaker. And yet, I don't know if someone has sat down to create an exact science of this yet. LIGHT your cigarette. Light YOUR cigarette. Light your CIGARETTE. This is the same sentence and yet, it means something different depending on what word we choose to accent. I'm sure you can already hear that the pitch pattern is different in each one. High-low-low, low-high-low, low-low-high respectively. An English teacher is not going to go this into detail with any of their students. Unless they're a a person training say an actor or something for a film and the actor is trying to sound native.
And that's just it, isn't it! The only people that are bothered with this are those who are trying to pass as natives. As if pitch accent were the only aspect that would give you away as a foreigner. I hate to have to say it, but unless you look anything other than Japanese that's just never going to happen. Over the phone, maybe. And then maybe not even then.
You can have impeccable pitch accent, but it will do you no good if your ら row is off. Pronunciation of doubled consonants. (Little っ; both of these Italians have an advantage.) Perception and pronunciation of long and short vowels. Or how about ん? つ? These are all sounds notoriously difficult for foreigners to make. And we're not even at grammar.
Can you use は and が correctly? Can you address yourself and others in 敬語 correctly? Do you how to use 自動詞 and他動詞 correctly? So called "passive voice?" "Adverse passive" etc.?
These are all aspects of Japanese that will give you away as a foreigner no matter how good your 高低アクセント is.
Anyway, grazie 🤌 for this video. There are some people who really need to hear it.
"LIGHT your cigarette. Light YOUR cigarette. Light your CIGARETTE. "
All three mean the same thing. Only the context of the answer is different.
1. Maybe you were doing something different with your cigarette.
2. Maybe you were trying to light someone else's cigarette.
3. Maybe be you were lighting your cigar or something instead of your cigarette.
Aquí hablante nativo de español que enseña japonés. Concuerdo con todo lo que dijo usted. En español nuestras reglas de acento son pocas, casi no hay ninguna excepción, y si parece que la hay, en realidad es una regla específica, no varía de país a país ("transitó", "transito" y tránsito" significarán lo mismo y se tildan donde se tienen que tildar en España, México, Argentina, Costa Rica, Colombia, El Salvador, Cuba e incluso Chile.), y sí puede causar malentendidos si no se atiende.
En japonés es más importante todo lo que usted mencionó que el acento tonal. He tenido malentendidos por confundir vocal larga o corta, consonante doble o simple; す, つ y ず; ち vrs し que por acento tonal, del cual de hecho no recuerdo haber tenido un malentendido, y yo no he estudiado acento tonal con intensidad como sí lo he hecho con la gramática y los kanji.
Sí es importante, eso sí, saber las reglas básicas de entonación de oraciones o sintagmas: saber por ejemplo que si quieres hacer una pausa, hazla después de las partículas, asegúrate de que la entonación baje en las partículas y después de los verbos (excepto si haces una pregunta), que la primera mora (digamos que "sílaba" aunque no es exactamente lo mismo) y la segunda tengan el acento opuesto, que no hay subidas y bajadas como sí pasa en español. Casi siempre les digo a mis estudiantes que si les cuesta mantener la entonación "plana" que tiene el japonés, que pronuncien las palabras como si fueran esdrújulas o sobreesdrújulas, y no graves, curiosamente este truco ayuda a que la entonación se parezca más a la japonesa y que el acento caiga en las partículas.
I've been practicing daily for around a year now and I can say that delving to deeply in the pitch accent definitely inhibited my progress in learning the language. I think it was good to know but so far it has been far less important towards learning fluency. I feel like it'll be something I go back too when I can actually have conversations and start to learn which accents best match my personality.
How about "shadowing"? That could be a good idea to repeat the most common expressions. Rest can be learned if needed, e.g: if it is a subject you are keen on.
Context? Well! Captain Context aka Matt Eastern, will be happy to hear that!
I think Metatron's stance on modern wokeness in culture might rub Matt Easton the wrong way.
When native speakers try and understand what you are saying, they do not listen to every word, their brain cross checks what you say with their experiences throughout life (this is why we are able to understand people talking in places like clubs, despite other loud noises blocking words). If you do not have reasonable pitch accent, correct rhythm, etc, then the Japanese native speaker will be very confused. I live in Japan and work a job where I speak Japanese pretty much exclusively to older Japanese people and this was my lived experience. Even when I said grammatically correct things, if it was not the usual way Japanese people would say it, Japanese people would be baffled by what. Lots of people compare English to Japanese, but English native speakers are used to a far larger variety of pronunciation and sentences than Japanese native speakers.
Context is the basis of every dad joke ever made.
Been learning pitch accent like sign langauge which is really fun. like for hair i put my hand on my head and salute, then I put my hand down by my chest for paper and then I lower my hands to the side in a bowing motion. the angle of my hand is what which pitch is. all the while I say the words in the right pitch. safe to say I look pretty ridiculous when studying lol
I kind of agree however Japanese do not think that way… especially because in standard Japanese the language in discussion is NOT precise, it is vague… due to politeness. Therefore tge only way a japanese is sure to know what you mean is through pitch.Apart from obvious social situations like hashi when eating at a restaurant…. a japanese will smile at you, not say anything or in some cases praise you, but think you are a total idiot.
Amongst friends though you would be correct, pitch isnt important because the japanese being used is more informal, even slang and friends really wont care what you sound like.
Ive lived here in Japan for 32 years now, so I feel I can speak on this topic with a high degree of confidence and experience.
Also Europeans, especially Italians will go out of their way to try and understand you. Not so much Japanese people who simply enjoy being amused.
Yes, context is incredibly important. I've never asked for お箸一膳 at Lawson and got a bridge. But when I say レジ袋入らないです with the wrong pitch, the cashier will sometimes reply はい２枚.I've been told that some people listen to the pitch accent and not the actual words. Combined with the fact that many people see a foreigner and think they hear English, even when you're speaking Japanese, IMO it's better to learn proper pitch accent.
TLDR: I don't see a downside to learning pitch accent.
the link to dogen's patreon is missing
¡Gracias! He visto pocas personas que tienen una opinión en medio con respecto a este tema. Voy a meter la cuchara aquí basado en mi experiencia:
Soy un hablante de nativo en español que enseña japonés.
En español nuestras reglas de acento son pocas, casi no hay ninguna excepción, y si parece que la hay, en realidad es una regla específica, no varía de país a país ("transitó", "transito" y tránsito" significarán lo mismo y se tildan donde se tienen que tildar en España, México, Argentina, Costa Rica, Colombia, El Salvador, Cuba e incluso Chile.), y sí puede causar malentendidos si no se atiende. Pero este sistema de acentuación y tildes no existe en japonés, y eso no ayuda, menos el que varíe de zona a zona, por más que el acento tonal de Tokyo sea el estándar.
En japonés siento que los malentendidos por acento tonal llegan a ser pocos. He tenido malentendidos por confundir vocal larga o corta, consonante doble o simple; す, つ y ず; ち vrs し que por acento tonal, del cual de hecho no recuerdo haber tenido un malentendido, y yo no he estudiado acento tonal con intensidad como sí lo he hecho con la gramática y los kanji. Y si ha habido una palabra que por el contexto no ha quedado clara... recurro a hablar del kanji que usa esa palabra que termina por desambiguarla (me sorprende que haya personas que piensan que el acento tonal es más útil que el kanji, ¡o sea...!).
No obstante, Sí es importante, eso sí, saber las reglas básicas de entonación de oraciones o sintagmas y algunas básicas de acento tonal: saber por ejemplo que si quieres hacer una pausa, hazla después de las partículas, asegúrate de que la entonación baje en las partículas y después de los verbos (excepto si haces una pregunta), que la primera mora (digamos que "sílaba" aunque no es exactamente lo mismo) y la segunda tengan el acento opuesto, que no hay subidas y bajadas como sí pasa en español. Casi siempre les digo a mis estudiantes que si les cuesta mantener la entonación "plana" que tiene el japonés, que pronuncien las palabras como si fueran esdrújulas o sobreesdrújulas, y no graves (que es una costumbre automática que les he detectado a los hispanohablantes cuando están empezando a aprender japonés), curiosamente este truco ayuda a que la entonación se parezca más a la japonesa y que el acento caiga en las partículas.
Tener una pobre entonación de sintagmas y de oraciones va a afectar automáticamente el acento tonal, pero curiosamente lo inverso puede no ocurrir.
Es una buena idea advertirle a los estudiantes que el acento tonal existe, pero no hace falta enfocarse demasiado en ello si no es la prioridad del estudiante. Y he visto que si uno está constantemente oyendo media en japonés (podcast, conversaciones, blogs de japoneses nativos haciendo cosas, anime, videojuegos, etc) ayuda a interiorizar pasivamente una buena parte del acento tonal y a reproducirlo con una precisión digamos satisfactoria para que te entiendan, salvo que una persona tenga sordera a los acentos o a alguna parte fonética de los idiomas (yo por ejemplo, y por efectos de mi autismo, me cuesta captar y reproducir tonos [como los de mandarín] y vocales más allá de las 5 en español o japonés [de ahí que tenga problemas con el inglés]).
LOL you said Nagasachi instead of Nangasachi! 😉
It seems like matching stress placement with high vs low pitch would be a good segue into describing the manner in which pitch accents operate. The example you gave of “háshi” vs “hashí” sounded very similar to stress placement systems in languages which rely on stress to distinguish potential homophones.
The two operate in a similar manner (if the pitch accent only distinguishes two pitches).
I think this would be a useful corollary for introducing the concept. It also seems [to me] that one of the barriers for English speakers is our tendency to reduce the vowels of unstressed syllables towards a schwa. Once the speaker unlearns this habit, the effect of stress placement becomes much more similar in application to that of pitch accents. (Obviously the ore is still a difference; I was merely saying it can be a helpful way conceptulizing the process for a non-native speaker)
English verbs, for instance, exhibit this distinction from corresponding homophonic nouns or adjectives:
“condúct” (verb) vs “cónduct” (noun)
“convérse” (verb) vs “cónverse” (adjective)
“refúse” (verb) vs “réfuse” (noun) ~(plus dialectal alteration between voicing on final [s])
In fact, there is even a tendency for English speakers to unconciously alter their pitch in such settings.
Anyway, this was a very interesting video. Much love from America!
Those aren't even homophones in English.
For example, here's the IPA for refuse rɪfyuz (verb) vs refuse rɛfyus(noun).
Sorry, I misspoke. I meant homographs.
I don't know about Japanese but ancient yamnaya dialects like vedic sanskrit and ancient greek and PIE itself will not work without pitch accent.
I was about to say that you may talk too much, but... excellent explanation! Thanks
this conversation always facinates me because the actual "study" process is so minimal. its like maybe a couple hours of upfront training your perception and then like a lot of exposure which you should be getting anyway if you are studying the language. the people arguing against it are just bitter and ignorant.
As an English native I must say, very nice aspiration on your english consonants for an italian, also th sounds.
I wish i was half as smart as this man. Remarkable
In my opinion, it is similar to latin length distinction. So, while not necessary for reading or speaking per se. It is necessary to sound native
I often take the position that accents are the spice of life. If everybody sounded the same it would be boring.
I can, for example, tell that the Metaron is not a native English speaker. Is that a problem? No, because native speakers in the US have a hard enough time saying my native state of Oregon correctly.
PITCH ACCENT is the answer.
As The Holy NHK intended
Ămēn
To me, it's something you'd want to know exists pretty early on, but it would be the last thing you need to learn about a word or phrase.
In English there are so many homophones that it's surprising that any English speakers would doubt the ability of context to do the work. We even have jokes that point out the silliness of it. What do you get when you drop a piano on a military base? A flat major
In Japanese, there are the Tokyo pitch accent, which is taught as part of Standard Japanese, and the regional pitch accents, such as Kansai, Hiroshima, Yamagata, Hakata, Hokkaido, Kagoshima, etc. Most Japanese speak with a pitch accent influenced by their regional dialect, if they did not grow up in Tokyo Metro. So I would say that while it's important to know about pitch accents, it's more important to know context.
That is ture that a prefect pitch would give a better account yet from my experience most Japanese don't like when a foreigners has a prefect accent as it gets rid off that cuteness for them.
As a fellow linguist and Japanese professor, I do not prioritize so-called "standard" Japanese pitch over 共通語 (kyootsuugo--"the common language") which has regional pitch differences. Just as "standard" Tokyo pitch is not enforced on Japanese children throughout Japan when they are educated, though they do learn standard grammar, it doesn't make sense to me that non-native speakers should have to sound like Tokyoites. I am glad that my Japanese reflects my history in Japan, which was mostly in Kyushu (Miyazaki prefecture), where I learned to speak 共通語 (kyootsuugo "the common language) and local language used in the city where I lived. And, when I moved to Tokyo, no one batted an eyelash about my Miyazaki pitch, which then, over time, blended to a hybrid of Tokyo and Miyazaki pitch. I think it is beautiful that our accents in native and learned languages reflect our lived histories. Our language embodies who we spend time with, where we live, etc. In Japan people often ask me if I grew up there, so I know my Japanese sounds natural, but nobody thinks I'm from Tokyo. And, I have no desire to sound like a Tokyo native. As a linguist, I value all language varieties. And, in hiring Japanese professors at my university, I am glad to say that we do not discriminate based on their Japanese pitch accents. We have professors from different parts of Japan who have different accents--some who use Tokyo pitch and some who do not, depending on where they are from, and from different parts of the US who have different histories in Japan, with their own various ways of using pitch in Japanese that blend beautifully with their own different accents carried along with them from their different Englishes. I love this richness. :)
Compared to tones in languages like Mandarin or Vietnamese, pitch accents aren't that important.
The main thing pitch accents do is make you sound like a native speaker. I think some people that are pro-pitch accents come to think that pitches functions exactly like tones which they are kinda are but kinda not. They are interesting though and when you learn japanese words you may learn the pitch accent without realizing it.
Idk why but dougen is so insufferable, ik it's just me but yeah. Like after his vids I gave fewer fucks about pitch accent
As someone who is not trained in Japanese the pitch accent seem to be like any other accent. There's a certain accent that's considered standard Japanese like in let say General American English but just like in American English depending on the region the accent might change. For people who come to English from a foreign language one can still speak fluently in English yet still carry the accent of your mother tongue.
My mother tongue is Spanish and in Spanish we diferentiate words based on accentuation of syllables which is where the á on words come from. They are there to mark where the stress of a syllable and words do change depending on where you put the accent with pronunciation rules explaining how a word it said in case of no accent. It's a concept that's hard for me to explain in English but it's a REALLY important part of Spanish and if you don't master that you will sound foreign.
As a Spanish native speaker who teaches Japanese, I say it: our stressed accent is not the same as the pitch accent in Japanese.
De hecho, diría que en español sí que es mucho más importante el acento de intensidad del español que el acento tonal en japonés. También, esta es una característica que curiosamente no varía no importa qué dialecto del español hables: "transitó", "transito" y tránsito" significarán lo mismo y se tildan donde se tienen que tildar en España, México, Argentina, Costa Rica, Colombia, El Salvador, Cuba e incluso Chile. Esto no va a variar, y acentuar incorrectamente sí puede causar malos entendidos. En japonés no es una característica tan estable (Metatron justo explica que varía de región en región) y no causa muchos malentendidos como sí errar con otras características del idioma. No ayuda tampoco el hecho de que no tengan un sistema de tildes como sí lo tenemos en español que nos facilita mucho las cosas.
Volviendo a lo primero que dije, viera usted que sí son diferentes. En español siempre hay una sílaba que resalta sobre las otras, pero en japonés no suele ser el caso. A veces escucharás que todas las sílabas (en realidad, moras) de una palabra o una parte de ellas suenan altas o agudas y otras bajas o graves. En general, se puede describir como que el acento y entonación japonesas hacen parecer que las oraciones suenan "planas", en tanto que en español hay "subidas" y "bajadas". De hecho, pienso que en japonés es más importante dominar las reglas esenciales (y sorprendemente simples) de la entonación de las oraciones o al menos de los sintagmas (sujeto, objeto directo, complemento indirecto; complemento circunstancial de lugar, tiempo, instrumento, compañía, etc) que el acento tonal.
Por supuesto, es importante hacer consciencia de que el acento tonal existe y enseñar quizás lo más básico posible, pero ya dependerá del estudiante si quiere profundizar en eso o no.
To be honest I don't care too much about pitch accent. I remember only one case that pitch accent was needed in JLPT. It was in a listening question, in order to distinguish between 隔週 and 各週.
To make things more complicated, pitch accent is different between regional dialects of Japan. A Japanese once told me that I sounded like a native speaker, but with a strange regional accent. For those who want to master the pitch accent and other peculiarities of (standard) Japanese pronunciation, there is the NHK's 日本語アクセント辞典.
This is one of those things where, if you happen to be a musician or native speaker of a tonal language, it comes naturally. If not, you need to be told it exists and it matters, but then *acquire* it, not "learn" it, just like the rest of the language.
Trying to teach pitch accent is like teaching a list of grammar rules and a list of vocabulary. People do it. They make a lot of money off it. They even think it's the right way to learn. But their students don't actually improve until they go out and do the same stuff they'd have had to do without the classes in the first place: namely listen and read a tonne of the target language and hear countless examples of it in real situations.
From what I've gathered, Pitch Accent is an aspect you learn for the sake of the listener rather than for your sake (as the student).
Sure, most native speakers will be able to understand you however you're requiring more effort on their part to ensure they're not misunderstanding you. May be fine if it's a one-off conversation while ordering or asking for directions but as kind and patient as someone may be, they may still get fatigued having to speak with you for prolonged periods of time.
Let me see if this analogy works - does English also have a “pitch accent”? Without pitch accent we can be understood, but it may sound weird and difficult to understand for a native speaker and sound like those aliens in the movie “galaxy quest”
English has word stress, and different Englishes can vary in word stress. In American English we say VEGetable. In Indian English (oh, I hope I remember this correctly) I think they say vegeTAble. We understand each other just fine.
Tonari no kyaku wa yoku kaki ku kyaku da.
The neighbor's guest is a guest who eats a lot of [persimmons|oysters].
"Kaki" has different meanings depending on the accent, and both can be eaten.
I've been in Portugal and Brazil; in one place they call it "dióspiro", and in the other they call it "caqui". Put them together and you get Diospyros kaki, which is the scientific name.
In this case
You could either say
toNARI NO KYAKU WA YOku kaKI KUu kyaKU DA
と／なりのきゃくはよ＼くか／きく＼うき／ゃくだ
隣の客はよく柿食う客だ
The neighbor's guest eats a lot of persimmons
Or
toNARI NO KYAKU WA YOku KAki KUu kyaKU DA
と／なりのきゃくはよ＼く／か＼き／く＼うき／ゃくだ
隣の客はよく牡蠣食う客だ
The neighbor's guest eats a lot of oysters
Or
Even
toNARI NO KYAKU WA YOku kaKI/KAki KUu kyaku da (ending with a final low pitch, but it wouldn't change the meaning in both cases)
This is a great take. Don’t listen to the pitch shills!
The question is, can I still become 上手 without learning pitch accent?
those pitch differences sound for me like stress syllables in spanish
A word like “spirits” is not a great example, because all usages have the same pronunciation.
With two words with the same pronunciation but different meaning, like spirits, yes it’s effortless to understand which is meant based on context. But as for the same word with different meanings AND different pronunciations, it breaks my brain for a second when they’re confused. Like, take the two pronunciations of content (i.e. CONtent, like subject matter, or conTENT, like a satisfied feeling). If someone said to me “I’m feeling CONtent” it’d take me a minute to understand, even though English is my first language. Likewise, if someone said “I don’t like that kind of conTENT”, I’d be mighty confused for a minute until my brain puzzled out the speaker’s intention.
So, I’m thinking “spirits” is a very inaccurate analogy. In English, stress is very important. Yes, perhaps someone with incorrect stresses could be understood by a English first language speaker, but it takes real effort. Similarly, my second language is a pitched language and it’s a real strain to understand what people are saying if the pitch is off. Sure, it can be done, because context and logic… but it’s makes listening noticeably harder than need be.
Sure but foreigners ALWAYS mess up words like content or console or combat and the like and it never gives any problem whatsoever in conversation. Think of a French accent speaking English for instance. Literally every syllable receives the wrong stress. Or an Italian stressing the wrong syllables. Still not a problem. It’s just an accent we accept. Yet in Japanese some people think it’s not acceptable to have an accent which is weird. It’s fine to have an accent, just like it’s fine to strive to lose as much as possible of that accent if that’s what you like. It’s a case by case
@@metatronacademy I didn’t express an opinion on whether learners should try to learn good pitch. I just said that your analogy wasn’t entirely accurate.
But if you’d like to know my opinion…
In your response, I really like the way you’re accepting differences and leaving room for individual perspectives. I hope you’ll consider this perspective. I believe that, for me, learning the language as closely as possible to how it was meant to be spoken is the most respectful way to engage with another culture. Unless we are already a part of said culture, I feel that language doesn’t belong to us no matter how well we learn it. To my mind, we are a guest in that language, and the right thing for guests to do is learn what constitutes good manners and then apply them. After all, what I (as an outsider) think is honoring a language might not actually be what that culture thinks is honoring that language, eh? So I try to abide by their customs as a matter of respect. Their house rules when I’m in their house, so to speak.
But ya know what else? My opinion, as an outsider, doesn’t count for anything. 😂 I think the only people who should get any say in how a language is learned are the people whose culture that language comes from. Full stop. This is especially important with cultural and racial minorities, I feel.
I’m seeing it as a matter of cultural sensitivity and respect. It seems to me that oftentimes North American and European people have a way of thinking they can take something (like a language) from another culture and do whatever they want with what they’ve taken as if it belongs to them, instead of honoring the language and its speakers by learning it according to the customs of the culture it originally came from. Quite a sense of entitlement, sometimes.
For me, I think if an outside culture, especially one that might have a history of colonization and/or cultural appropriation, wants to take something from a culture, especially a minority culture or historically persecuted culture, they should be very careful to do so in the way that is defined by and controlled by that culture. So, in the case of the Japanese language… How do Japanese people want non-Japanese people to approach learning their language in the most respectful way possible?
I obvs can’t answer that. But that’s my perspective in a nutshell. Thanks for considering my viewpoint.
@@FeralMina Believe it or not I agree with you when it comes to my personal approach to learning foreign languages. I always strive to do my very best, as a form of respect, to speak the language as close to a native as possible, even though that's a very challenging goal and I often fail. With that being said, I don't think every person has to necessarily do that. Only if you wish to also because let's be honest, not everyone can even hear tones or pitches.
The second part I strongly disagree with.
When you say: "I think the only people who should get any say in how a language is learned are the people whose culture that language comes from. Full stop." That's profoundly wrong, BUT I might be misunderstanding what you actually mean. Let me elaborate. People who speak a language natively do not know how that language is learnt as a second language. They have no clue. What they say could be completely wrong when it comes to language learning, if that's what you meant. If what you meant was how important it is to learn the pitches vs tones etc then sure, their perspective is definitely the most culturally important one, since it's their language after all. So if that's what you meant, the cultural aspect of it, the actual way it makes a native feel when you learn the pitches and tones and all that, then I would agree with you 100%.
@@metatronacademy Yes, your second interpretation was correct. To be clear, I’m definitely not saying that first language speakers necessarily make good teachers or can somehow be inherently good judges of teaching methods; we both know how wrong that can be! 🙄😆 I was moreso saying that first language speakers of minority languages/cultures should be honored as the sole caretakers of their own language/culture (i.e. the idea of culture and language as intellectual property), especially so regarding minority languages or cultures and, as such, they should have the final say in what exactly is a respectful way to interact with their language and culture, or even to decide if their language or culture should be learned by outsiders at all.
For context, if it matters, especially around my views on learning tone or pitch accent, I am a learner of a endangered tonal language that is indigenous to North America. As someone who is not a first speaker of that language, it is my place to honor both those who are first speakers and the language/culture itself by doing my best to honor the language - not as I personally think it *should* be honored, but in the ways that are culturally appropriate, as define by the culture itself. Where I come from, I would have no right to come into that space and behave however I want and then dictate how they should interpret my actions, you know? Like, I don’t do what I think should make them feel respected and then expect them to feel respected; I learn what they actually find respectful and then do THAT instead, ya know?
So that’s how things are where I come from.
In said language, the first speakers are nearly all elderly and there are far more learners than first speakers, so you can imagine what a devastating impact we learners could have on language and cultural preservation if we’re not careful. For example, if learners aren’t being careful to learn the use of tone accurately (as well as acquiring the ways of thinking and being that are the foundation of the language), experts say that the tonal aspects (and other qualities that are very foreign to English speakers, like classificatory verbs and other culturally-driven aspects of the grammar) in our language might become extinct within a generation or two, even if we do manage to save the rest of the language. That’s huge. There are other big impacts as well that may come from having so few first speakers, especially relative to the quantity of learners. So we learners are positioned to decimate the language if we’re not careful, whereas with other languages (like Japanese) that might not be concerning at all.
I suppose if learners of Japanese don’t want to learn pitch accent or the cultural norms around the language or whathaveyou, for whatever reason, at worst it might be taken as rude or ignorant, or their Japanese might end up sounding unnatural in content or pronunciation, or it might make them harder to understand by first speakers. (Or maybe no one will mind at all, what do I know? Nothing.) But ultimately Japanese is a thriving language with millions of speakers, it will easily endure a few careless hacks. Not all languages are sitting so pretty, as it were.
So maybe that helps fill out the picture of where I’m coming from. Thanks for listening, and have a lovely day!
In my opinion, learners should be aware of what pitch accent is. The absolute basics are pretty simple. They should take 20 minutes to learn the patterns. It really shouldn't take that long to hear the basic patterns. From there they can decide to pursue it further. Just being aware of what it is and being able to hear it goes a long way especially with immersion based methods.
How does pitch accent work in conjunction with vowel devoicement? Like, how can you tell the pitch of a devoiced vowel? It doesn't even make sense to me.
I have never studied Japanese. I know what tones in Chinese are and I have no confusion about that, but I really stuggle to understand how is a pitch different from a stress/tonic accent. 🤔
The honest answer is that it is a bit pedantic.
But the main point about it is that each word has a "normal" pitch tone. Think of it like how you spell a word. The pitch tone is like a verbal spelling of it. But unlike spelling, the pitch tone doesn't contain a lot of information in that if you get it wrong it doesn't garble the meaning.
Each word has this pitch spelling marker and most common words you will naturally pick it up as you will hear them often enough. But just because one word has one pitch tone spelling doesn't automatically mean similar looking words will have the exact same pitch spelling.
That is why it is a bit pedantic. Because it is a forest for the trees moment.
Here are some examples of pitch accent-related videos
Most teachers don't venture explaining or even mentioning it since it's all over the place and much more complicated than tones in Chinese for instance because pitch accent not only depends on a single word itself but also on other factors such as particles following the word, the conjugation of a verb, word combinations, it can depend on the role of the word (is it used as a noun or as an adverb, etc.), And it is highly irregular, like reaaaally irregular
th-cam.com/video/S6bEqpoga2M/w-d-xo.htmlsi=71DF0WTXNXtev696
th-cam.com/video/mcMgaO1inNc/w-d-xo.htmlsi=1xuvUe1B5L3s7yHk
th-cam.com/video/jcn2cpFdzz4/w-d-xo.htmlsi=TeAFrxCJSPfRX5Dm
th-cam.com/video/khjLFgNMh4M/w-d-xo.htmlsi=DP72Qd5LFe4M-s7c
With Japanese pitch accent (actually strictly speaking Tokyo pitch accent, others may be different),
the tone of each syllable doesn't matter. Only the location of the accent matters. The accent is marked by a drop from high to low pitch (usually called a 'downstep').
HL > first syllable is accented
LH(L) second syllable is accented.
LH(H) no syllable is accented.
Those are the only possibilities.
In Mandarin both syllables could have one of 4 tones for 16 possibilities.
Are native speakers really able to perceive and abide by all these rules in their own speech? Do they never forget how a particular conjugation changes the accent of a word, or how to say something with greater formality? Native English speakers make phonetic mistakes all the time. PREscription vs PERscription, DEtails vs deTAILS, adverTIZEment vs adverTIZment etc. and we don’t even have formal and informal register.
If your goal is to fool someone over the phone that you're native Japanese, learn pitch-accent. Sure, there are different systems of pitch-accent, but if you're inconsistent and mix them together, you're immediately tagged as foreign-sounding.
Otherwise though, don't worry about it. You'll be understood. (But sound foreign).
On the phone people think I am Japanese, but they never think I am from Tokyo. Not learning Tokyo pitch is not a bit of a problem. :) I would guess that most people in Japan don't speak with Tokyo pitch, since only 10% of the people in Japan live there.
Isn't this just the same as when learning a language with non-systematic emphasis? Is it NECESSARY to learn the correct emphasis for every word? No. Does it make you sound better? Yes, of course.
When’s the Japanese language tips series ??
Well articulated. Pitch accent is like the stress in the English.
Technically you can ignore it and speak like a mad man, and people can still understand you. It might come weird to natives, and that's all.
Ignoring pitch accents doesn't make you sound like a madman. Some areas of Japan, actually, have no pitch accent. This is part of the beautiful regional differences of Japanese. :) I think what makes Japanese accents sound most natural is when foreign speakers can nicely do Japanese syllable (moraic) timing. Speaking Japanese with English stress-timing can be harder for Japanese people to parse. But, adults have huge variation in their ability to pronounce foreign languages, so there will always be L2 speakers with strong accents. And the world is richer for it, in my opinion.
If I had to guess, if one word has two different meanings depending on which pitch you use, then it matters and you should learn it.
Me encanta
You dont need to study pitch accent. But... keep in mind that languages develop things for a reason. Japanese still has pitch accent precisely because it has a smaller sound vocabulary and therefore more homophones. Also sounds very nice. But you dont need to know it to profitably enjoy the language.
In german we say 'umfahren", what means "to drive over something or somebody".
And then there is "umfahren" what means "to drive around something or somebody" 😂
If you speak perfectly, then they will think you understand everything perfectly. That can be a bit risky.
But isn’t there a little delay in the understanding from a native speaker if you speak to them without the pitch accent.
I can only imagine that every native speaker is used to a certain rhythm in their language and if someone speaks off-rhythm it is still a bit harder to understand sometimes.
Pitch accents don't relate much to intelligibility. Intelligibility is more related to speaking grammatically and to the rhythm of speech, which in Japanese is syllable (mora)-timing.
hello weeb ones
Savage 🤣🤣🤣‼️
It's like when you miss a tilde in written Spanish but it's very obvious, "me comi un pan" nobody honestly will ask wtf is a comi because it so obvious he meant comí.
Context is king!
Tilde is ñ
Not í
@@Jay_in_Japan ACENTO GRÁFICO O TILDE LLEVA L I EN COMÍ , LA Ñ LLEVA VIRGUILLA Y LA U EN PINGÜINO LLEVA DIÉRESIS.
No corrija si no sabe.
@@cahallo5964He was right to correct you. It’s an accent not a tilde. Take your L and move on.
@@tanizaki maybe in English
@@tanizaki wrong. in Spanish, we have accent and tilde.
accent is the stress (marks the strong syllable and all words have it).
tilde is the á,é,í,ó,ú marker on the vowels that appears if certain conditions are met.
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I would imagine the reason why some Japanese language educators would say the pitch accent is important is because why teach incorrect syntax if you don't have to. Even if the context around the words would make it clear to a native speaker what is meant, you still wouldn't want to speak in constant unforced errors. It highlights to the native speaker that you are just learning the language and it'd be better to not communicate important things in a language both sides aren't fully fluent in.
It's like reading broken English. Most English speakers can generally understand what is meant by the context, but it's just unneeded brain energy to spend if it can be said correctly to start with.
It is less than that. This isn't akin to broken English. It is more like some guy speaking to you in an accent. That is all it is. Of course there will always be people who want others to speak like them.
In Japan my Pacific Northwest accent is considered to be among the best and easiest to learn. It is easier for them to differentiate between the sounds. Does that mean my accent is the single best one? Nope, but it is the one that they want to emulate.
@@NaishoTheNeko An accent doesn't change the meaning of words. Without the pitch some words would be the wrong ones. Which is the comparison to broken English. As I said, that wrongness doesn't make it less understandable with the appropriate context, but at the same time it still takes some amount of thought on the person listening to replace the incorrect word for the correct one and anybody would prefer not to do that if they didn't have to.
@@pacmonster066 It still isn't like broken English. Your example is far too strong.
There are even places in Japan with no pitch accent!
All people are arguing over is whether the Tokyo pitch accent is worth studying.
@@pacmonster066
An accent changes the meaning of words. That's the point of it.
@@kekeke8988 I think you're confusing what a dialect is from an accent. Your accent is *how* you say words. The pronunciation of the words. It doesn't change the meaning of those words. An Australian, Irish, English, and somebody from Texas all will have different accents but the words they're saying all mean the same thing.
And while it's called the pitch "accent" really it's just the way those words are meant to be said aloud. Different areas of Japan have different regional dialects or accents but they all do the pitch as it's how the language grammar works.
My university Japanese teachers had very questionable pronunciation. I agree that as a learner you don't have to learn pitch accent, but if you're a university teacher I feel like you should sound as close to native as possible. Because otherwise the students might imitate you and it's gonna create habits that can be hard to fix if wanted. With all the money we pay for our education I expect something better.
You pay for education?
Most languages in the world have tonal queues. In portuguese we have words like Côco (coconut) and Cocô (Shit), only diference here is pitch pronounciation, tonal syllable being in different "ô" each time. nobody says portuguese is a tonal language because of that. Japanese is not at all tonal, though it must've had some tonality in the past. Japanese is a syllabale based (consonant+vowel) language, with very few single consonants, and most of the time they have a tonic syllabe to diferentiate. another similar example in portuguese the word Cágado (small turtle) and the word Cagado (a passive verb meaning to be shat). nobody gets those mistaken, and there are millions more of examples. Japanese have to accept they have a stress tonic syllabe system now, that tonality has been forgotten in their language.
Plus, in most everyday aspects of the language, they themselves ignore pitch accent completely. Mostly they only use it when they're correcting people.
@@ReavinBlue Sim, nós conseguiríamos compreender pelo contexto, mas pode zoar um pouco ridículo nesses exemplos 😂
Talvez seja similar com "anno" vs "ano" em italiano, ou "penne" vs "penne"
@@ReavinBlue Careful here! Tônico and tonal are not the same thing. Sílaba tônica is typically translated into English as a "stressed syllable". I've seen "tonic syllable" as well, but I prefer "stressed syllable" specifically to avoid the confusion between "tonic" and "tonal". "Tonic" simply means "emphasized, higher in intensity". "Tonal" however refers to "having different tones".
As you've shown in your examples, the accent in Portuguese relies on the position and intensity of the stressed syllable, rather than on the tone that is applied to that syllable, so it's a stress-timed language (Portuguese from Europe) or a syllable-timed language (Portuguese from Brazil).
Tonal languages, however, rely on the position and intensity of a stressed syllable, but also on the *tone* that's applied to it. My native language Serbo-Croatian is an example of a tonal language. When we pronounce a stressed syllable, we also apply a tone that modifies the syllable during its pronunciation. So in words like lûk (arch) and lȕk (onion), the position of the emphasis is the same, the vowel is the same (pronounced the same as the Portuguese vowel 'u'), but the tone isn't. In the first word, the tone is long and it first goes slightly up and then falls. In the second word, the tone is short and starts for a split-second at a higher pitch, but drops immediately.
The difference between Serbo-Croatian and Japanese is that in a tonal language like mine, the tone of the stressed syllable changes as we pronounce that syllable (the tone goes up and down on the same syllable). In Standard Japanese, however, that's not the case. Each syllable maintains its own tone (high, low or flat) throughout the pronunciation of the syllable (the tone doesn't go up or down on the same syllable). That's why Japanese is a pitch-accent language, but not a tonal language. The term "tonal language" is reserved for languages like Serbo-Croatian and Mandarin, where there is this upward or downward tone change on a single syllable.
Pitch accent is so usless in my opinion. in French, we have a ton of words with the same pronunciation, the context speaks for itself.
Interesting!
What about pitch accent in Latinum?
No pitch accent in Classical Latin, if that’s what you are asking.
@@metatronacademy How do we know? Why is there still a controversy around latin had a pitch or a stress accent.