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Japanese Phonetics Episode 61—now with native recordings! (Patreon)

Published:
2019-05-03 05:58:59
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Bibliography
Japanese Phonetics Index Page

Good afternoon, Patrons! The sixty-first episode of Japanese Phonetics is now live with high-quality native recordings! In this lesson, we look at the exceptions to the の rule, and learn about why words such as 人 and 上 exhibit multiple pitch-accent patterns in everyday speech.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns with regards to this lesson, 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

Note 1: I originally planned on putting 時（とき）in the second half of this lesson, as it also exhibits multiple pitch-accent patterns in conversation, but while researching learned that it's not in the same group as 人、上、下、日、and 内, so I removed it. We'll be looking at similar words in a future lesson. I apologize for the confusion.

Note 2: In the original version of this lesson, for the word うち (starting around 11:30) I used the kanji 内 when it should have been 家. This has been corrected in this version of the lesson along with the addition of native recordings.

Files

Previews only

Japanese Phonetics #61: Exceptions to the の rule & words with multiple pitch-accent patterns

The sixty-first episode of Japanese Phonetics, my series dedicated to Japanese pitch-accent and pronunciation.In this lesson, we look at the exceptions to the の rule, and learn about why words such as 人 and 上 exhibit multiple pitch-accent patterns in everyday speech. If you have any questions leave a comment below the post on Patreon, and thank you all for your continued support! Bibliography: https://www.patreon.com/posts/17345632

Comments

Dogen
>>74098338

Hi, Antoine! JP here, Dōgen's business partner. I'm helping manage the messages here on Patreon. My apologies for missing your question and replying late. I checked with Dōgen, and his answer was simple: "I believe that this is true, however there's no way for me to verify this because it's practically impossible for me to check the pitch accent of every one-mora word." I hope this helps! — JP

Tom

Looking forward to catching up on these - just got back from my first trip to Japan the other day. I feel like this video series did a lot in my being able to hold basic conversations without being super self conscious of pronunciation!

greyface

You mention in the video that nouns that express quantity are unaffected, however I had a question about those quantity words that are different from regular counters such as 二人. OJAD seems to suggest that the downstep is removed.

Kyle

Along with #60, one of the best episodes in this series yet! Thanks for explaining some of the many pitch accents I've accepted by copying natives without really understanding.

Dogen
>>22365102

Hi Arthur. Vance (2008:157) notes that words such as 一冊 retain their downstep when followed by の but OJAD lists 一冊の as 平板 so I would imagine that the algorithm they use doesn't account for this particular exception. Hope this helps! Cheers!

Dogen
>>22359252

Hi Tom. Glad to hear that the series helped to boost your confidence while speaking! Hope that you're able to pick up some useful tips from the more recent lessons! Cheers!

Adrian Mike William Reed

Hey Dogen, thank you for all your effort you put into this series! I wonder if you could focus more or on pitch within whole sentences, as you did in one of your videos already? maybe a small mini series or something would be nice :) also how then to treat words which appear in compounds but on their own would have different pitches (eg. 市外局番). in this case for example the 番would be raised again when looking at the words individually. but usually there are no raises after a drop if looking at a single word, right? thank you in advance and greetings from germany ;)

Dogen
>>22493792

Hi Adrian. Thanks for the input! I have the next couple lessons planned out already, but I do plan on revisiting compounds and sentence level pitch-accent in the not-so-distant future. And yes, in a compound the pitch shouldn't raise again after the initial drop! Cheers!

Jasmine Li

I also just joined as a new Patron and wanted to say hi. I specifically joined for your Japanese Phonetics lessons--I'm one of those unlucky students that had already reached a conversational level of fluency before I realized how important correct pitch-accent is... and the bad habits had already set in. I've struggled for years to find a comprehensive series on Japanese pronunciation (and in the meantime reached fluency in business Japanese, my intonation as odd as ever), and this is it. I remember being blown away the first time I saw one of your comedy skits (a friend Lined it to me), and thinking "Native pronunciation really is possible for non-native speakers..." That fueled my dying obsession with Japanese pronunciation. So thank you again, and I look forward to catching up with this series as well.

Dogen
>>22587572

My pleasure Jasmine! So glad to hear that you're getting a lot out of the series already. I'm sure you will feel your pronunciation improving rapidly over the next few months. Thank you for the support and good luck with your continued studies!

Orange Hedgehog

Hi, Dogen! I have a question about so-called "modifiers". What falls into this group? Only words with "の" or other dependent structures as well? For example, "川崎氏という人もいます。", ”近くに住んでいた人は...”, etc.

Dogen
>>25689312

Hi Berion! Dependent structures (any kind of word or phrase that describes the follow person) fall into this category as well. Cheers!

Jae_Games

Hey Dougen thanks so much for the awesome videos! The part about the multiple pitch accent words really helped cause they always confused me cause i kept hearing pronounced multiple ways and wasnt quite sure what the rule was. On a similar topic I also notice that in この人 the accent is actually placed on the の. Whats going on here? Thanks in advance!

Enrico Paolini

Hi Dogen! I've been binge-watching the series to catch up after 'falling off' for a year or so, so I apologise in advance if this is something you've addressed in later lessons or in other comments somewhere. I couldn't help but notice that at the end of lesson 60 you mentioned 時 as one of the words you were going to talk about in lesson 61, but then it is not addressed in the lesson itself. I've noticed multiple pitch accents with this word, and have had a hard time finding specific information (in fact, I found two sources saying two opposite things), so I'd like to ask for your opinion on whether this 'makeshift' rule I've sort-of-deduced is correct: the word 時 is 尾高 by itself, but becomes 頭高 when it is preceded by modifiers (kind of like the 人・上 series of words, but shifting from 尾高 to 頭高 instead of from 平板 to 尾高). Is this correct? If it is, is it a one-off or are there any other words like this?

Dogen
>>36887557

Hi Enrico! Great question. Yes, I believe that this is correct. I actually decided not to include it in the lesson specifically because of what you had mentioned—because many of the resources I had didn’t include it in the 人・上 series, and or because the information I found on it was conflicting. That said, during my own comedic videos from getting feedback from my wife and other Japanese speakers I believe that the rule that you described is correct—again I didn’t include it in the lesson due to the lack of academic information on said subject. Cheers!

Markas

Hello Dogen! I have yet another question, correct me if im wrong. Is the sentence ''私はその人を見たことがない'' 　suppose to be said like waTASHI WA SONO HITO wo MIta koTO ga NAi? Because ''その / あの‘' counts as a modifier right? Also, for 此の is infront of 人, then it must strictly follow the unique fixed pitch accent in the video? Please correct me, Thank You!

Dogen
>>39212618

Hi Markas, そのひと is also a set phrase, and in my understanding that it usually, if not always, said as soNOhito, thus the phrase would technically be waTASHI WA SONO hito wo MIta koTO ga NAi. And yes it is also my understanding the このひと is usually, if not always, pronounced as koNOhito. Incidentally, I believe that あのひと (aNOhito) is the same. Cheers.

Markas

By the way Dogen, does the Modifier Rule apply to 事 too? 事を is a 平板 word isn’t it?

Dogen
>>39262777

Hi Markas, I have heard the word being used like this in conversations, but 事 isn't listed in one of my accent dictionaries the way that the other words in this lesson are, which is why I didn't cover it. I suspect there is something going on with 事, but I haven't yet come across this in my research. If I find it I'll make a lesson about it, however!

ShineKia

Hi Dogen-sensei, this is probably not really related to the video but recently I've been learning on my anki and I found out that words like 歳, though it's written as 尾高 in the dictionary but the native audio read it with the attached particle を as if it's 平板, is there some sort of rule behind 歳 too or it's just an irregularity 発音 which already covered in later videos?

Dogen
>>43273061

Hi Shinekai, from what I can tell this is actually an 頭高 word in isolation, and has exhibits a down step on the final syllable of the number when following a number, as in NIsai, SAnsai, YOnsai, GOsai, etc. Incidentally both of the accent dictionaries I have on hand list this さい in isolation as 頭高, so I'm not sure what's going on. Any additional information you can share?

ShineKia

I'm sorry my bad. I meant to ask 年 （とし） instead of 歳（さい）. Weird that when I typed とし, 歳 came out as the kanji. For example in my tango deck, in this sentence: 80歳です。年を取りました。, the native recording I have in the deck has 年を read in 平板 method. Here's the audio recording: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kaheyumtzofdali/EGNvilu4En.mp3?dl=0

Dogen
>>43302794

Hi Shine. She actually is saying toSHI wo, but adding a bit of emotion and inflection, which is making it sound a bit more like 平板 than a completely emotionless 'textbook reading' of the phrase. Hopefully this answers your question!

ShineKia

I see, I totally can't tell for this one yet. Thanks!

Antoine Contal

Hi Dogen, At 01:43, you say: "Note that another way of saying this is の-induced pitch change usually occurs in odaka words rather than nakadaka words that end with a long syllable." What about one-syllable odaka words like 絵, 木 or 目? In episode 60, you said the の rule does not apply to words with only 1 syllable. Does that mean the above simplified rule would be more accurate if stated as "の-induced pitch change usually occurs in multisyllabic odaka words rather than nakadaka words that end with a long syllable." Concretely, 木の下 would be KInosiTA, right?