Pitch Accent Help

Obviously pitch accent is different depending on region, but most of us are familiar with the Tokyo area pitch accent. I’ve had no trouble being understood while in Japan because of my accent, but I would still like to learn it, as I struggle very greatly with the pitch accent. Does anybody have recommendations for learning it? (Resources can go to level N3, as I have passed that exam already. I know my WK level doesn’t reflect that.)

1 Like

If you haven’t checked Dogen out before, he’s got a lot of great explanations and resources. You might even try asking him directly what books he most recommends, since he’s studied it in depth (he might’ve even mentioned it in a video or maybe it’s written down somewhere, I didn’t look very hard because I haven’t gone gung-ho into it, myself).

5 Likes

For WaniKani, there’s an extension which displays pitch accent on (most of) the vocabulary: [Userscript] WaniKani Pitch Info.

3 Likes

Thank you so much!

1 Like

I primarily run WK on mobile (though I can technically use PC). I don’t know much about installing the extensions and third party stuff, but I’m pretty sure it’s pc exclusive, right? It might be worth pulling out my laptop for it, if I need.

1 Like

Firefox Android can install extensions, not all extensions work because of the format but I have no reason to believe this one wouldn’t.

Some people think so, me included. It help me fix my own grievances with the tool, as well as build my own tools / hacks for it.

1 Like

The Midori iPhone dictionary app includes pitch accent, so it’s a handy reference.

3 Likes

I really appreciate the input that you think it’s worth using a PC. There are other extensions I have been recommended, so I’ll definitely try it.

Thanks! I’ll keep that in mind, too.

The android Wanikani app Smouldering Durtles has pitch accent info:

2 Likes

My general suggestion for getting into pitch is as follows. Don’t mean to be patronizing if you already know this stuff, but I’ll start from 0.

  1. Get a basic over view of what pitch is and how it works. Youtube videos are fine. For example:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6AoilGEers
    https://youtu.be/jt04eg9T2sE?si=N8GIj07QUjRzJBPy
    or any other resource thats been made on it. It really doesn’t matter and don’t worry about having a perfect understanding at the start.
  2. I would use kotu.io and do the minimal pairs test until you can reliably get 100% accuracy. This might take a couple weeks or even 1 month+, but it really just depends on how much time you put into it. You might find yourself revisiting videos. Thats fine.
  3. Transition to learning the fundamentals of patterns in everyday japanese. This is where things get a bit harder because theres not a lot of resources out there and the ones that are are in japanese. I had an amazing google doc that I used to learn this stuff that basically compiled the most useful patterns/rules from the nhk accent dictionary…but last I checked it got deleted. Even so, unfortunately ime the NHK accent dictionary (and even the shinmeikai) felt pretty necessary for studying up on some stuff, so I got them anyways. This also served as a good reference Tips for Japanese Pitch Accent · GitHub . At the very least I would use it to learn conjugation patterns. They’re a lot easier than they look. This post is also useful Reddit - Dive into anything
  4. Learn word pitch. This can be done alongside 3, but I would start by having a wk script to show you pitch, and just listen for it. Also just like looking up words generally on like jpdb.io or something when you kinda wonder to yourself what the pitch of something is. Its a bit harder, but also just getting in the habit of listening for it when you’re listening to regular spoken japanese.

This will get you to a decent point, and you can even set up anki to make pitch cards for words that you have learned in the past if you want to do that. Lastly, I would suggest the resource youglish

If you get into studying pitch, you will quickly realize there are a lot of words that seemingly have multiple correct answers, weird exceptions, and words/compounds that dont have their pitch written anywhere in the nhk dictionary. Youglish is the quickest way to find out how most people tend to pronounce a word because you can just listen for a few clips and go with the majority. Hope this helps.

7 Likes

it is moments like these I remind myself why I download useful stuff from the internet.

3 Likes

I actually found it on the way back machine

If anyone can manage to get that info with the same formatting on a different doc that would be impressive. As is, I can load it and get the popup to go away by clicking “send error report” but I cant copy anything.

EDIT: Got a PDF…enjoy :slight_smile:

2 Likes

Thank you so much! Not only for the resources but for also going as far as to use the wayback machine and keep hunting.

I personally found that holding long vowels and んs long enough has been a bigger problem for me that pitch accent. As told to me by my Japanese friend. So that’s something to look into if you can.

It’s also as simple as recording yourself. If you played a sentence on google translate robot voice even, that things pitch accent would be better than yours even if it’s not perfect, but you could also get a audio book and record yourself attempting to recreate the reader’s vocal patterns.

This is interesting to me because I’ve heard differently from different sources. I’ve heard that there is important emphasis on holding the vowel for its intended mora, but I’ve also heard the opposite where the accent is more important than exactly how long you hold the vowel. I’ve heard both perspectives from native Japanese speakers, so it seems to be a bit of both. I don’t think there’s exactly a science to it. I think at the end of the day it’s just “sound more similar to a native”, and that can mean different things in different contexts.

I think it depends on the word to. Some words have similar words with different pitch accent, and some words have similar words with different vowel lengths. In you don’t hold a ん long enough it’s almost like not saying it at all.

All I meant is from my personal experience, the times that Japanese people haven’t understood me is almost completely limited to vowel length and ん length. This is a difference from what they think is important to what actually stopped them from being able to understand me in the moment, which are different.

1 Like