# Question about pitch accent

**URL:** <https://community.wanikani.com/t/question-about-pitch-accent/45132>\
**Category:** Japanese Language\
**Created:** [July 30, 2020, 10:02am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/question-about-pitch-accent/45132 "2020-07-30T10:02:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![vvv](https://cdck-file-uploads-global.s3.dualstack.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wanikanicommunity/original/3X/f/d/fd4c154120954695f788402f3bcf4e616499bc2d.png) [@vvv](https://community.wanikani.com/u/vvv)\
**Post date:** [July 30, 2020, 10:02am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/question-about-pitch-accent/45132/1 "2020-07-30T10:02:25Z")

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Hi! I’m trying to learn the correct way to pronounce vocabulary but I’ve noticed that the pronunciation is sometimes different between the two recordings provided (female and male voices). For example, in the word 仮名 [WaniKani / Vocabulary / 仮名](https://www.wanikani.com/vocabulary/%E4%BB%AE%E5%90%8D) the pitch of the female sound goes up while the male one goes down. Does the pitch accent depend on the gender of the person speaking?  
I usually prefer to listen to the female voice as I find it clearer but I hope it won’t make me speak in a weird way. (mixing male / female pitches)  
What do you guys do? Do you stick to the voice recording related to your gender?

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**Author:** ![Leebo](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/wanikanicommunity/user_avatar/community.wanikani.com/leebo/32/439476_2.png) [@Leebo](https://community.wanikani.com/u/Leebo)\
**Post date:** [July 30, 2020, 10:07am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/question-about-pitch-accent/45132/2 "2020-07-30T10:07:35Z")

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It’s not really a gender thing… I think it’s just a Kyoko and Kenichi thing. Strictly speaking it should be like Kyoko says it. If you refer to a dictionary that has pitch accent listed, you’ll see that indicated.

> **[「仮名(ケミョウ)」の意味や使い方 わかりやすく解説 Weblio辞書](https://www.weblio.jp/content/%E4%BB%AE%E5%90%8D)**
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> 「仮名」の意味は\<p style="padding-bottom: 10px;"\>\<!--AVOID\_CROSSLINK--\>読み方：かな\<!--/AVOID\_CROSSLINK--\>《「かりな」の転「かんな」の撥音無表記》漢字に基づいて作られ、用いられるようになった、日本語独特の音節文字のこと。Weblio国語辞典では「仮名」の意味や使い方、用例、類似表現などを解説しています。

Saying it like he says it almost makes it sound like it’s a person’s name. People can be named Kana, of course, with different kanji, and most people’s names with 2 syllables are [high \> low] regardless of what word their name was based on. (for instance, 雪, snow is odaka, low \> high, but people named Yuki will be high \> low)

I’m not sure how they recorded the files, but there are thousands of them and it seems like some of them have little oddities like this.

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**Author:** ![vvv](https://cdck-file-uploads-global.s3.dualstack.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wanikanicommunity/original/3X/f/d/fd4c154120954695f788402f3bcf4e616499bc2d.png) [@vvv](https://community.wanikani.com/u/vvv)\
**Post date:** [July 30, 2020, 10:11am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/question-about-pitch-accent/45132/3 "2020-07-30T10:11:56Z")

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alright! I’ll stick to Kyoko’s voice recordings then. Thank you for your explanation 🙂

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**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/wanikanicommunity/original/4X/6/2/a/62a8b0f4c59ff2c5b6651ffcf43531480b3e5297.png) [@system](https://community.wanikani.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [July 30, 2021, 10:12am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/question-about-pitch-accent/45132/4 "2021-07-30T10:12:48Z")

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Closed on July 30, 2021, 10:12am UTC

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