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Japanese Phonetics Episode 27—LIVE! (Patreon)

Published:
2017-09-16 16:10:06
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Bibliography
Japanese Phonetics Index Page

Good evening Patrons! The twenty-seventh episode of Japanese Phonetics is live! In this shorter, more abstract lesson, I talk about sentence-level pitch-accent, reflect on phonetic awareness, and offer all patrons a simple, but effective phonetics challenge.

If you have any questions or concerns please don't hesitate to leave a comment below. Thank you very much for your continued support, and good luck with your Japanese studies!

Best from Beppu,

Dōgen

Files

Previews only

Japanese Phonetics #27: Sentence-level pitch-accent and phonetic awareness

The twenty-seventh episode of Japanese Phonetics, my series dedicated to Japanese pitch-accent and pronunciation. In this shorter, more abstract lesson, I talk about sentence-level pitch-accent and phonetic awareness, and offer all subscribers a simple phonetics challenge. If you have any questions leave a comment below, and thank you all for your continued support! Sources: ・慶應義塾大学の日本語アクセント講座 ・新明解日本語アクセント辞典第２版（監修：金田一春彦、編：秋永一枝、出版：三省堂） ・NHK日本語発音アクセント新辞典（編：NHK放送文化研究所） ・Apple Japanese Dictionary（スーパー大辞林）

Comments

tensaimon

Woah, I can't quite believe you just asked for video....I actually made this at the weekend, but after some frustrations with my Anki practice (see my other post) I wasn't feeling much like broadcasting my pitch-accent inadequacies to the world.....but now you've asked for video, well, ok here you go: my fanboy rendition of your 花見礼儀 video. Enjoy.... <a href="https://youtu.be/inZGR0i-ALc" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/inZGR0i-ALc</a> (PS I fully agree this is a brilliant way to practice, the uploading part is a real motivator. Pretty scary tho...)

Dogen
>>11796736

Nice job! Practice is definitely the key to improving, so I commend the effort! Did you happen to research the pitch-accent patterns of the words before performing?

Annabel

Thank you for the video, as always! I am not ready for any public videos of me speaking Japanese yet, but I started recording myself recently, just 1-2 sentences, and comparing these with the textbook CDs I have. Then, trying again, and again, until I sound decent. Surprisingly, it is actually quite fun! But.. I still have a problem “hearing” the pitch (here I mean being able to tell which morae are low and which are high in every word I hear). I do hear more prominent downsteps in a sentence/phrase and can kind of copy these , but I have no reliable way to see whether I am even saying the words correctly! I downloaded “RTPitch” program to my (windows) computer, and “Voice analyst” onto my iphone – but both of these programs only “hear” me when I pronounce every word very slowly, and every mora quite distinctly.. Which is fine, but, for example, I am trying to say heiban words e.g.リンゴが, but the program shows a nakadaka pattern. I try saying the same words to my skype tutor, and he says I pronounce them correctly, they sound heiban to him. Should I trust the program more, or the tutor? (who is both musical, and professional when it comes to Japanese phonetics). Or, another example, I practice atamadaka元気だ or odaka 　弟がand the programs show proper pitch patterns, but the teacher corrects me and says I need to work on my gap between low/high pitch in these words.. After a few repetitions during our online lessons I can more or less copy the teacher’s correct pitch, but… Since I can’t hear or understand what is happening, I can’t replicate the result at home – and I can’t even rely on these programs to confirm my success or show my mistakes and areas I need to work on. Moreover, another Japanese person’s opinion on correctness of my pronunciation and pitch is different from my tutor’s! Both are of the same age group and live in Tokyo area. My mind seems to be really weird with processing pitch-related stuff and keeps recognizing/”hearing” only stress-accent – for example, if you say 聞くas atamadaka and stress “ku” , I hear “ku” as higher than “ki”.

Dogen
>>14099239

Hi Annabel! No worries, always glad to help! I have a couple of recommendations! First, I would try using a screen and audio capture program to record the conversations you're having with your phonetically trained language partner, and to then use these recordings to practice when you're alone. I would also show the recordings from each conversation to both of your language partners just to make sure that you're reproducing the sounds the exact same way each time. In other words, I would try and cross-reference with a concrete set of sounds, rather than trying to do it on the fly, where things can get a bit mixed up. Please try this for the time being and let me know how things go! Thanks and talk to you again soon!

Teemu Jalkanen

Hello. I've been wondering on where could I post my recordings. I don't like to take videos so I just do recordings. I believe something like soundcloud would be better than Youtube for uploading audio only recordings. I'm wondering is there some site where I could have natives correct my recordings? I know there's Hinative, but it seems that it's not possible to upload recordings but it has to be recorded on the app itself, and also the recordings can't be longer than 1,5 min which is a bit too short. I appreciate any advice on this.

Dogen
>>151915940

Hi, Teemu. JP here, Dōgen’s business partner. I’m helping manage the messages here on Patreon. If you’re looking for asynchronous feedback you might try something like HelloTalk or LingoDuck, but don’t have any information as to their recording limitations or what the service might cost. One challenge of working with a native speaker on apps like this is that there is a chance they may not be aware of pitch accent or pitch accent rules, or may not know how to teach it to someone learning Japanese. Another option could be taking lessons with Natsumi Sensei here. She does a free group lesson every month for patrons in the Japanese Phonetics tier, which we announce on Patreon, and she also offers private lessons separate from Patreon (available here: https://go.oncehub.com/Natsumi). I hope this helps!

Adam Papai

Thanks Dogen! I started to record myself and I plan to record every day. For now I did the 1-4 mora words exercises but as I progress I'd love to add sentence level ones too, but for now my sentence level intonation is horrible I think. No Japanese teachers are correcting me but I know that it sucks sometimes. the interesting part is that whenever I ask my wife about: is it correct? she gets confused in 20 sec and she can't decide it :D She grew up in Japan from 3-12 so she's fluent and has a native and no accent (in terms of fluency), but sometimes she can't explain or help me with it. So I simply ask her sometimes to say this or that. And try to memorize the intonation pattern. :D Here is my playlist for the 1-4 mora words. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WlsUKzkDr4&index=1&list=PLEb6qNv-uxi_m8yq09RowKvIBnSNtmsxU" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WlsUKzkDr4&index=1&list=PLEb6qNv-uxi_m8yq09RowKvIBnSNtmsxU</a> I think sometimes I'm pushing too much on the begining, but that is probably because my mother tongue is Hungarian.

Dogen
>>16166196

Excellent work Adam! This is exactly what you should be doing! I listened to a few videos and at this point your intonation and pitch sounds very good. Keep this up and you'll make massive progress in no time! Sentence level pitch-accent should come easier as well if you continue to do this ^^ Cheers!

Casper Kouwenberg

Do you think emurse and recording yourself shadowing could be enough? Should I stop recording myself shadowing and switch to recording myself reading the movie transripts of the shadowing material without the movie, or would I be better served reading material I haven't heard, and then comparing that with the native recording? I ask because it occurs to me that recording myself shadowing might only help monitor my ability to shadow, not my ability to speak japanese unaided.

Joanna Tien

Hi Dogen, this isn't related to recording per se, but I was wondering how you keep track of and remember the pitch accent for words? I'm using the Anki deck and that's helping a lot with memorization, but how would you recommend remembering the pitch accent for new vocabulary or words I've been saying wrong? Do you have any tips for fixing incorrect pitch accent for intermediate learners who've already got a significant amount of vocabulary under their belt? It can feel a bit overwhelming sometimes knowing that I've got all this vocabulary I'm not sure how to pronounce. Thank you!

Dogen
>>32616020

Hi Joanna! I do believe that using Anki is a great way to memorize the pitch-accent of words. That said, it can be a bit daunting to try and memorize the pitch-accent of thousands and thousands of words, so it might be best to simply start with a small deck that only contains words you have made mistakes with / words that aren't covered by major rules such as the ぶ rule, the 4 mora 2 kanji rule, the compound rule, etc. This is the approach I would take if I wanted to memorize the pitch-accent of as many words as possible without exhausting myself! Cheers!

RedAgent14

In terms of recording oneself, do you have any tips for overcoming the "cringe factor" that occurs when listening to a recording of oneself?

Dogen
>>34918862

Hi Red! Unfortunately the only real way to break through this is through continued effort—you may think you sound strange at first, but believe me when I say that you'll get used to the exercise very quickly if you stick to it!

Dogen
>>39533230

Hi Julian, sounds good! To my ears it sounds like you're putting a bit too much stress on the そ in ろうそく, but that may just be because I'm used to hearing 蝋燭 said with 尾高 pronunciation. If I were you I would try to get a native to listen to the recording and see if they say the same thing as me about the そ, and if they do then I would work on reducing stress, though this is something I struggle with myself. Cheers!

Rei

Hi, I don't remember which lesson you presented the sentence level "speak in a relatively flat manner except for the word or phrase you want to emphasize" guideline. Maybe it was this video? I thought this was a very useful guideline, but am still unsure about how this works in practice, specifically when the word to emphasize is 平板. Does this make the whole sentence basically flat? I think I need to keep working on my listening, and try to figure out what word I think they are emphasizing in each sentence as they speak... Thanks so much for your lessons, they have been very helpful to me!

Dogen
>>64323143

Hi Rei! Thank you for the comment and question! So happy to hear the lessons are helpful to you!! Now, maybe what you are talking about is lesson 25? Please check it at the link below. https://www.patreon.com/posts/japanese-episode-13940725 The basic information in that lesson is the general rule when 平板 words come together in a phrase or sentence. In everyday speech, when 平板 words are put together in a phrase, the rising intonation (low-to high) in the later 平板 word tend to disappear or become weak. So like you said, the phrase would sound in a relatively flat manner. But again, that’s the general rule. When you want to emphasize the later 平板 word, the low-to-high change in the 平板 words stays low-to-high, oftentimes the low-to-high change gets more dramatically depending on how much you want to emphasize the word. Please take a look this sentence as an example, “教室にカエルがいます”. If you simply want to make a statement that there is a frog in a classroom, you would probably pronounce it as kyoOSHITSUNI KAERUGA IMAsu. The general rule I mentioned above applies here. But, if you are sitting in a classroom, and were surprised to see a frog there, you might pronounce it differently. Some people (including me! ) would shout “kyoOSHITSUNI kaERUGA IMAsu”, emphasizing the word カエル. In that case, the low-to-high change at “kaE” would be dramatic, and you might raise the “E” really high to show your surprise or fear. So depending on the context and how much you want to put the emphasis on the word, the rising intonation of the later 平板 word stays. Yes, keep working on your listening and pronunciation, and your Japanese will sound more and more natural! I hope this helps! (^^) -Kimi

Enrico Paolini

Hi Dogen! Despite your "warnings", I found this lesson quite interesting and useful. After all, you can pick up rules from books, but developing habits (effective ones, especially) and knowing how to actually, practically use those rules when studying is something that's quite a bit harder to grasp. Since your lesson deals basically with this aspect, I appreciated it very much. =) On a side note, for a few lessons now I've been unconsciously attracted by the book on the shelf behind you. I can't quite make out the title since it's blurred, but the big 0 in the middle and the cover design led me to the conclusion that's it's 永遠のゼロ. Am I right? May I ask if there's any particular reason you chose this book as part (the most distinctive one, I dare say, since everything else is plain-coloured) of your background?

n

反省したら道元さんがおっしゃった通り、今まで自分の声をまだ録音してない理由は多分、自分が想像している声とその現実の差が怖いからですね。それでも、道元さんとインタビューしてくれる妻のおかげで頑張って初めて動画を撮ってみました。皆さんの意見をお願いします：<a href="https://youtu.be/CP9RnHu9vpg" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/CP9RnHu9vpg</a>

Dogen
>>7309459

Hey Daniel! Thanks for contributing. Very, very impressed by your tape! The only pitch-accent bit that was 気になる程度 for me was the「むかし」bit at 3:53. Sounded more like 中高 than 平板—what do you think? Other than that I think you're doing extremely well! Thanks again for the contribution, and keep it up! ^^

Giant Gough

dougenさんはvlogをチェックします？ほんで、ユーチューブビデオがプライベートならまだdougenさんに遅れますか？ユーチューブの使い方よくわからないですけどこれやってみたいと思う。

Dogen
>>7409090

I won't be able provide feedback for everyone, but because entries now are quite limited I should be able to give a basic look through. Please post your video here, however, if you would like me to look at it :)

Enrico Paolini

Sorry for posting this here, I should have maybe posted it on lesson 19, but I wasn't sure how notifications work and whether it would go unnocited if I posted there... sorry if it turns out I did something horrible. =P In lesson 19 you mentioned the pattern for the imperative of 平板 verbs, and said that it's 尾高. Being a very OCD person, I often check everything against both accent dictionaries I have, and while the 新明解 is in total agreement with your explanation, the NHK says that the 命令形 of 平板 verbs is 平板; it doesn't however offer (or, at least, I couldn't find it) detailed explanations or examples with the particle よ attached. Now, I realise this is a very subtle difference, and considering that more often than not imperative forms come at the end of sentences there wouldn't actually be any difference between 尾高 and 平板, but as mentioned above my OCD compels me to ask: is it something you were aware of? Is there any particular reason for this discrepancy, like a linguistic shift or something that's not elaborated on in the dictionaries? Sorry to bother you with my constant questions, I hope I'm not causing you too many neuroses. =P P.S. I was just reminded you have books for sale on Amazon, so I decided to check out マヨネーズ, which seems interesting. Not really sure when I will find the time to actually read it through (short as it is), but the description alone seems quite intriguing, so I'm looking forward to it!

Dogen
>>7434962

Not a problem. Just so you know I get all notifications, so you can post on the relevant lesson in the future. With regards to the pitch of the imperatives I went with the 新明解 explanation because that's the one that I hear by far more often in everyday speech. I also have both dictionaries and made this decision consciously. Thanks for the interest. Hope that you enjoy マヨネーズ！If you can get past the first 20 pages you should end up liking it haha.

Sashin Exists

The task of starting a phonetics blog sounds like it could be a lot of fun! I would be happy to jump into a recording habit, but for it to be useful I would first be able to recognise the patterns in hearing, right? Should I start by doing your earlier practice video (the one with the fake japanese words) over and over until I'm confident in recognising the patterns, then practicing with live japanese and recording myself? At the moment I wouldn't be able to assess myself!

Dogen
>>75908617

You're right; you need to be able to recognize the patters first to check your own recordings, and to do that you need to do a lot of immersion to train your ears. A ton of immersion; at least six months of listening every day. Once you have a feel for the the patterns, practice, listen to native recordings, and record yourself. As you think about your long term study plan, it can be good to watch the discussion I had with Matt from MattvsJapan. (https://www.patreon.com/posts/long-term-road-38355581) Hope this helps!

Dogen
>>8784843

Yes! I’ll be sure to give you some concrete feedback once I get my computer back tomorrow. It’s definitely not bad by any means btw!