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Episode 6.1: Improving pitch-accent awareness (Patreon)

Published:
2020-02-18 05:48:10
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2026-06
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Content

Bibliography
Japanese Phonetics Index Page

Japanese Phonetics Episode 58

Clarification Post mentioned at end of lesson
Note: The post mentioned at the end of the lesson has been replaced by Japanese Phonetics #5.1, which covers Japanese voice and speaking style.

Good evening Patrons!

Episode 6.1 of Japanese Phonetics is live! In this lesson we learn an effective exercise for hearing and pronouncing words from a pitch-accent perspective, as opposed to a stress-accent perspective.

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

Files

Previews only

Comments

cocolope hernan

These excercises are amazing. I am learning pitch accent before learning how to even read japanese which is the easy part, but I want to store the words in my brain and learn them with the right pronunciation and pitch.

Dogen
>>180233414

Hi, Cocolope! JP here, Dōgen's business partner. For most of us who studied Japanese in a more traditional classroom setting, pitch accent was never really covered. Learning about it and learning how to listen for it as you begin your Japanese studies (or even learning the concepts before beginning your studies) can certainly help you develop the knowledge that so many others were never even exposed to. Learning words with the correct pitch from the beginning is a big step.

Donald Allen

This is seriously great. I have some comments. 1. You should stress that when doing the exercises with the vowel to make sure your mouth doesn't move between the sounds. When I first did it, I realized I was opening my mouth some to do the high pitch. Mentally "freezing" my mouth helped me focus on just changing pitch. 2. For the interested, I would recommend downloading the Praat software. With this software you can pretty easily see the pitch in your utterance, which could be helpful (although maybe more for sentence level work). The link is: http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/

Dogen
>>32682186

Thanks Donald! I still have the edit file so I'll be sure to put in point one and re-upload. Cheers!

Mo Gasmi

Absolutely fantastic lesson. Your exercise really makes a world of difference in finally being able to better differentiate Japanese pitch from English stress when producing it.

Dogen
>>33141170

Hi Mo, really glad to hear that you found the lesson so useful. Hopefully you'll find the lesson that comes out this Thursday equally beneficial!

skabahk

I thought of the best example for contrasting stress and pitch accent! haha banana vs バナナ

Majed AlGhannam

Hi Dogen, I have been supporting you since Sep 18, I have stopped watching after the 11th video ( The Test) since I failed miserably. I couldn't distinguish between low and high accent. For the first time I can now distinguish between the two and I can produce them. This is the most important video. Thank you!!!!

Dogen
>>33336964

Very glad to hear that Majed! I'm sure you'll start hearing the patterns everywhere now! Cheers!

Joel Mitchell

Hey Dogen, a little confused about what the deal is with these decimal lessons. Are you simply going back to your old lessons now and updating them? Is 75 technically the last episode of your phonetic lessons? I apologize if you've already talked about this in a previous episode!

Dogen
>>35045147

Hi Joel! I believe I talked about this a bit in the past, but yes, I'm using this new naming scheme to cover things that I believe learners should learn early on. I can't make a new Lesson 7 or Lesson 8, but there are some elementary ideas, such as the gentle drop in pitch covered in lesson 6.3 that I think everyone should know about from the onset. The later lessons cover more advanced rules that aren't as important, such as rules for numbers, etc. Thus, all the decimal lessons are in fact completely new lessons, but they are covering more elementary topics that I think everyone should try and learn as soon as possible. Cheers!

Thomas Schoemaker

Hey Dogen, quick question. I was looking online for materials about Japanese pitch-accent. I came across this book called: The sounds of Japanese. Are you familiar with this textbook and if so do you recommend it? Thanks in advance and keep up the good work.

Dogen
>>35729105

Hi Thomas. Yes this is a fantastic resource that I have cited multiple times in this series. Dr Vance is one of the leading academic voices in Japanese phonetics!

Natasha Mitchell

I don't mind that you added extra stress in words like おはし initially as it helped me 'hear' the correct place for the pitch to rise, however now I've studied pitch accent for a while it's time to move past that. I think these revisions are going to be a game changer for me. I chose to learn with a teacher who has an emphasis on pitch accent and despite his and your hard efforts I struggled so hard to hear and say certain words with the correct pitch. It's amazing how I can listen to and shadow a recording perfectly but later on my own my pitch is either completely wrong or I'm putting stress that shouldn't be there! I'm finally starting to get it now, thank you.

Dogen
>>36208539

Hi Natasha! Thanks for the kind words. Just to clarify, I may not be re-doing / re-recording these initial lessons, but adding supplementary lessons, like this, to the beginning of the series. That said, because I've made everything about my own personal pronunciation issues quite clear at this point, I think that this (adding supplementary lessons, rather than completely re-recording the initial lessons), is the better option. Just be sure that you listen to as much native speech as possible! Incidentally I know that it can be rough in terms of not being able to say the various patterns, even if you can correctly shadow them; stick with it and you'll see progress over time! Cheers!

Jessica Gann

New person here, but I wanted to say thank you for making this! I got to take some phonetics training before moving to Japan, but I didn't think about pitch accent at the time because I wasn't aware of it before. Having exercises like this is so helpful for me to hear the difference between stress and pitch in my own speaking. Thanks so much!

Dogen
>>36707444

My pleasure Jessica! Thank you for signing up, and I'm glad that you hear that you're already getting so much out of the course! Good luck with your future studies!

Ana

Hello Dogen. Thank you for the attention to detail in this phonetic series. I used a piano to help with this exercise which was challenging and super useful. Do you think a difference of two whole notes is enough / too much between the high and low sounds for this exercise? I used B3 and D4# on this online piano: https://www.apronus.com/music/flashpiano.htm

Dogen
>>43133984

Hi Ana, I'm not educated enough in music to answer this properly, but in a recording of the statement 'それはバナナ’, or 'That is a banana', that Vance did for his 2008 book 'The Sounds of Japanese', it looks like the accent of the word バナナ is at around 300 hertz at its peak, and that the following mora then drops to around 200 hertz, depending on what section of the mora is being measured. That said, I would encourage you to not worry about the exact frequencies and differences, as this can vary greatly depending on the speakers emotions and intentions. For most cases, it's best to simply mimic native speech while being conscious of what pitch-accent is. It may be useful for you to try mimicking the native recordings of words in the new version of lesson 6 at first, and then coming back to this exercise after doing that, such that you have a better feel for native speech initially. Hope that this helps!

Katinka Wondergem

I recently started noticing that whenever I try to speak/mimic Japanese, I clench my teeth (not very forcefully). Since then, I've been trying to get rid of that habit but it now seems like I was subconsciously onto something:') will still try to let loose a little bit, but I guess it's not that much of a problem for now. Thanks for these videos Dogen, they're amazing!

Dogen
>>45374702

Hi Katinka! I'm not really sure what you mean by you think you were on to something—can you expand a bit? Cheers!

Rei

I love these videos! Thanks for putting them out. I've been trying to learn Japanese for awhile but have basically ignored pitch accent because I felt overwhelmed trying to learn it in addition to everything else. I love to sing though, and know a fair amount about music theory, so I love the idea of these words having rules based on pitch, like you are singing a song rather than speaking! -Rachel

Dogen
>>63404841

Very glad to hear that, Flyer! Best of luck with your future Japanese studies!

Joao Pedro Lang

Hi Dogen! Just an FYI, the link to the "Clarification Post mentioned at end of lesson" is broken

Dogen
>>64007430

Hi, Joao! Thanks for catching that. I've updated the link so it points to the new, updated lesson that covers this.

Emiliana Tan

It’s like singing practice !

gfaster

this was amazingly helpful, tsym!

Martin Verde

Hi Dogen! An observation from the pitch exercises: I notice a substantial lowering of pitch between the first and third mora when you are pronouncing the nakadaka version of "a-a-a" and between the first and fourth mora for the odaka version. Is this intentional, or should both low mora "officially" have the same pitch? Just wondering because you don't explicitly call it out in the video. Thanks for the helpful lessons!

Christoph Märkl

Hi Dogen! I notice that I tend to just speak louder instead of rising the pitch (like a A a) - is this addressed later in the course or do you have any tips for this? :) Best regards, Christoph

Dogen
>>90519011

Hi, Martin! You're noticing the subtle drop in pitch, which is covered in lesson 6.3.

Omar E.

Hi Dogen, I want to know at what stage you started to learn about pitch accent ? I mean in terms of approx JLPT level (Even if you didn't take it at that time)

Dogen
>>91757939

Hi, Christoph. JP here, Dōgen's business partner. I'm helping manage the messages here on Patreon. This could be a matter of practice to overcome stress-accent habits. Revisiting lesson 5.2 (Stress accent vs. pitch accent) might help with this, as well as watching lesson 58 (pitch accent review and useful practices). I hope this helps! — JP

Dogen
>>93397417

Hi, Omar. Based on conversations I've had with Dōgen and what he's said in videos talking about his own linguistic journey, I would guess he might have been around... maybe N3? He talks about this in lesson 2 and I think also in the discussion with Matt in "Long term Japanese study Plan with Matt from Mass Immersion Approach". I hope this answers your question! — JP