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Japanese Phonetics Episode 25—LIVE (Updated with native recordings) (Patreon)

Published:
2017-08-19 15:39:05
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Bibliography
Japanese Phonetics Index Page

Good evening Patrons! The twenty-fifth episode of Japanese Phonetics is live! In this lesson, we begin to talk about sentence-level pitch-accent.

If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to leave a comment below. Thank you for the continued support and good luck with your Japanese studies!

Best from Beppu,

Dōgen

Files

Previews only

Japanese Phonetics #25: Introduction to sentence-level pitch-accent

The twenty-fifth episode of Japanese Phonetics, my series dedicated to Japanese pitch-accent and pronunciation. In this episode we begin to cover sentence-level pitch-accent. If you have any questions leave a comment below, and thank you all for your continued support! Bibliography: https://www.patreon.com/posts/17345632

Comments

Julius Jacobsen

I can't speak fluently yet, so I often have to pause in the middle of a sentence. Since in English and German the particles for verbs "belong to" the verb ("to study" or "zu studieren"), it felt natural to break Japanese sentences down in the same way. In other words, if I had to, I would pause like so: "日本語*pause*を勉強しています." After hearing you break down the example sentence in this lesson, I think this is wrong and I should change this.

Dogen
>>21305338

Hi Julius, thanks for the comment. I think that's probably a good idea—Japanese particles are very different from English and German particles, as you mentioned, so it's best to try and think of them in their own, unique context. This may seem intimidating now, but over time you'll slowly develop a sense for how to use each one. Cheers!

Anthony

Hi Dogen, I have a doubt and I don't know if I'm being silly here, but if you only have 平板 words in a sentence, would the sentence end on a mid/high pitch even if it was a statement? It seems counterintuitive to me as a native English speaker, but that's the logical conclusion from what I've understood so far.

Markas

Hello Dogen! I want to ask if the ''の’’ of ’’乗る’’ becomes High Pitch if it's followed after 電車に？ Will it become 電車に乗る/乗った with the 乗る/乗った being completely 平板？If so, that means this rule also applies to 友達と山を登る with the 山を登る being completely 平板 too?

Markas
>>38859419

i just noticed, that the 山を is a Nakadaka word, so that means 山 will become high pitch as connected to 友達と which is a Heiban, then proceed to drop at を　　　as downsteps will always drop

ʏūʀᴇɪ ᴀᴋᴜᴍᴀ

Hi dogen sensei . Can you help me these sentences because OJAD is confusing me now . 1, わたしはのぼります。shouldn't it become waTSHIWA NOBORIMsu ? In OJAD のぼります stays nakadaka？ 2、 わたしははいます。( I crawl ) crawl is atamadaka . Does it change to nakadaka when we add ます to it ? And does it remain heiban in the sentence?. 3, わたしは走ります。waTASHIWA haSHIRIMsu.

Dogen
>>50214448

Hi Yurei, yes 私は登ります should be waTASHI HA NOBORIMAsu, at least in everyday speech (I suppose waTASHI HA noBORIMAsu might be possible in very slow, careful pronunciation, but this isn't indicative of everyday speech in my opinion). Yes, 這います changes to nakadaka when ます is added, as I believe I talk about in the verb pitch-accent lessons. 這う is atamadaka but 這います is, again nakadaka. 私は走ります should be waTASHI HA HASHIRIMAsu, again, in everyday speech. Please note that OJAD doesn't account for some of the rules that I explain in this series, and or explains things slightly differently, so I unfortunately can't comment on every difference that you find between this series and OJAD. Thank you for your understanding!

もーく

I feel like I have a breakthrough with my pitch accent knowledge and abilities every time I watch a new video, thank you so much Dogen!

Anton

Hey Dogen, I was just wondering what would happen when you have two atamadaka words in a single sentence such as "僕は元気です". Would that mean that there are two down steps or does the pitch go back up high again at the start of 元気 and then go back down following the atamadaka pattern. Also how would this work when adverbs are being used such as かなり強い and とてもきれい?

Dogen
>>75318832

Hi Anton! Sorry for the very late reply—for some reason I didn't get the notification for this post. I actually talk about this in a fair amount of detail in lesson 6.3, towards the end of the lesson. Do you mind first watching said lesson to see if it answers your questions? I think it will help a lot. Here is a link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/japanese-episode-35173952

Dogen
>>8763462

Hi Joshua. There might be a couple reasons for this. First, depending on what the speaker is trying to emphasize, it’s certainly possible to ‘reset’ the phrase pitch after 私は, which would result in a slight lowering of pitch at the beginning of 日本語. Prosody can also affect things to a certain degree. That said, in theory, and in a very high number of everyday conversations, the rising pitch at the beginning of the second word in a heiban sequence will disappear or become weaker. For reference I was taught this rule with the word 私 and a combination of other heiban words from a Japanese pitch accent professor at Keio University. With regards to the website, it would seem its phrase level pitch accent algorithms aren’t quite perfect, which is why it’s displaying the words’ individual pitch accents, as opposed to their ‘combined pitch accent’. Hope that this helps! Please let me know if you have any additional questions!