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Episode 6.2: Effective active listening drills (Patreon)

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2020-03-06 08:30:59
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2026-06
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Content

Bibliography
Japanese Phonetics Index Page

Reading Aloud in Japanese

Good evening Patrons!

In this lesson we work on improving our pitch-accent awareness by going through several active-listening drills.

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

Jenny Brown

The one that throws me off the most is definitely the 中高 where more than one mora is in the high position. Also occasionally I'm mistaking between the "slight drop" for 平板 and the bigger drop for 尾高.

Nick Godwin

Hi Dogen, Thanks so much for the wonderful video. It was really useful training. I found the made-up words relatively easy to distinguish but found I really struggled with the 2-mora words in the 'real' examples. It doesn't appear to be related to identifying any pattern in particular but rather the longer the word is, the easier I find the pattern to identify (I'm not sure if there's an upper limit on that, but certainly in the examples given). Do you have any advice on particularly training to distinguish shorter words. Also, this might already be covered somewhere else, but am I right in thinking that a 中高 pattern and an 頭高 pattern for a 2 mora word would be identical? Is there any way to distinguish them (or is it even necessary to do so?) When I did the exercises, I wrote down the name of the pattern the check against the revealed pattern but had this issue with 2 mora words since the particle attaches low in both and there is no upstep to distinguish the 中高 from the downstep-only pattern of the 頭高. Thanks as always for the amazing content. I'm thoroughly enjoying this series!

Joe

Does the ability to consciously know what pitch accent pattern I'm hearing matter? When I was going over this and I started recording myself repeating what the recording was saying and looking at the spectograph and realized that, while I struggled to consciously know what the pitch accent pattern was, I was consistently able to repeat back the correct pitch accent pattern in my actual speech. Thanks for the help, Joe.

dearestalexander

Hi Dogen, after quite a lot of theory in previous lessons I really enjoyed this lesson. I found that by listening and repeating/guessing especially without text on the screen my brain started to really pay attention to the pitch. I didn't get everything correct, but enough to have a confidence I'm on the right track. I found it quite difficult to pick between heiban and odaka in general. Can't quite tune into the difference in the が pitch. Great stuff! Thanks.

Dogen
>>110786733

Hi, dearestalexander. It can certainly take time to identify the different patterns, but it's good that you're picking it up. Keep up the good work; it will come to you!

Dogen
>>105591224

Hi, Nick. JP here, Dōgen's business partner. I'm helping manage the messages here on Patreon. My sincere apologies for missing your question; I don't think I ever got a notification from Patreon. You might have figured some of this out, but two mora words can only be one of three patterns: 頭高: 箸が（HAshiga) 尾高: 橋が（haSHIga) 平板: 端が（haSHIGA) The 中高 pattern needs at least three mora plus a particle (starts low, goes high, drops at some point, particle attaches low), so it doesn't work with a two mora word. Since there are no 中高 patterns in two mora words, your question about 中高 and 頭高 doesn't quite work here. However, 尾高 and 平板 patterns are basically identical without a particle. Because of this you'll want to include the particle when practicing or drilling yourself, otherwise you could have trouble when using the word in a phrase or sentence. As far as training to hear and distinguish the pattern in shorter words, this is one of those areas where you can't beat practice. Short words can be hard to hear. That said, the more you develop your phonetic awareness and your ability to reproduce the patterns the easier it will become, even for shorter words. Once more, my apologies for this extremely late reply. I hope this helps, and as always thank you for your support!

Dogen
>>109013939

Hi, Joe. JP here. Like several other comments I've found recently, I never got a notification for this. My apologies. Hearing and reproducing the pitch accent is what most people struggle with the most. If you're doing well with that, continue practicing and you should find your ability to consciously know the patterns will develop with time and repetition. Keep at it, and best of luck with your studies!

Kha Le

I am only at Genki 1 lesson 3, but I think it is good to learn this before I have gone too far. I have watched this video 4 times. I guess the pitch correctly up to 80% now.

Dogen
>>137070639

Developing phonetic awareness now will help you as you progress in your studies. Keep it up!

DoubleDoubleYea

Any other music majors here happy that all of those ear training courses we had to take are paying off during these exercises? I know I am! lol I never thought they'd help me with learning Japanese!

Dogen
>>143964022

Hi, DoubleDoubleYea. JP here. Over the years we've heard (here and in other places) from more than one learner with a musical background, commenting on how their training really helped them be able to hear the pitch accent. It's almost like having a little advantage.

Sashin Exists

Came back after a long time and seemed to to very well, somehow at the beginning I kept making the same kind of mistake of getting odaka and heiban mixed up. I seemed to recover by the end though.

Raava

wow, i really think im refining my listening, super lession, thx!

MegaZeroX
>>87185973

I'm the same! I found distinguishing between 中高 and 尾高 easy but distinguishing between 平板 and 尾高 to be difficult

Justin

Great video Dogen! I noticed that I tend to mishear 中高 words as having their downstep 1 mora later than it is. If it's on the 2nd mora then I might hear it on the 3rd, if it's on the 3rd then I might hear it on the 4th, etc. Is this a common mistake, and is there any practice you would recommend for it other than general listening practice?

Nathan Vegdahl

Super useful episode! Thanks so much for putting this resource together.

Dogen
>>33348874

Hi Justin! I plan on covering this in the next lesson, do you mind waiting until then for the answer? Need just a bit of time for research.

QsavrQuest

I don't see this episode on the Index Page.

Majed AlGhannam

Thank you Dogen, Amazing episode! Is the book you linked is useful for beginners?

Dogen
>>33404579

Hi Majed! Yes, there are English translations for everything so I think it would be a good option for beginners as well. Cheers!

William Ly

What did you use to generate the pitch accent sounds? I find it useful to manually put in the pitch accent I thought I heard to see how it differs from the correct pitch accent. The OJAD one is finicky when used with more than one word.

Dogen
>>33414032

Hi William! I didn't use any programs per se, I simply wrote down the names of the patterns I wanted the speaker to say with each word, and then sent them off to a native who is experienced with Japanese pitch-accent, and thus obviously knows all the patterns very well. That said, we'll be doing a bit of work next lesson with these same recordings using PRAAT. Cheers!

Ben Pearson

I'm only up to this lesson, and I'm going to go through it a few times, then I'll tackle Genki 1 vocab. My question is (and this might be covered later) how would you write/draw the iptch pattern onto the vocabulary on a page like this https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0414/0681/products/genki-i-an-integrated-course-in-elementary-japanese-a-second_1115_1400x.jpeg?v=1571438770 I'm thinking about using a red friction pen and adding the pattern to each piece of vocab. How would you do that? Just writing the number of the intonation pattern as found in the Japanese dictionary on my Mac (thanks for that) might be the only thing I need later, but starting out perhaps there's a good way of transcribing the pattern directly onto the hiragana/katakana. I can keep it covered while i'm reading the kanji and see if I got it correct afterwards. Any chance of a photograph of how you would do that. (Above the hiragana might work too, but it might get a bit cramped on the page, so I thought over might work better as a point of reference)

Dogen
>>33518956

Hi Ben! Yes I would indeed recommend simply using numbers, and to write them perhaps to the left of the ひらがな such that you can cover the entire left page while reading the kanji. I don't recommend physically drawing the pitch-pattern over the ひらがな, as soon start to learn many words straight from 漢字, rather than ひらがな and then 漢字. Cheers!

Liam Cronin

This is very helpful Dogen, thanks! I am finding trouble with atamadaka words, it seems i am confusing them with nakadaka with the downstep on the third mora. I find odaka words the easiest but sometimes mistake heiban words for odaka because of the slight drop in pitch on the particle. It sounds like a slight quater tone drop. But the drills are making it much easier to notice that the slight drop isn't dramatic enough to be odaka. I am also a little confused as the pitch drop sounds to me like a slur or a bend into following pitch. Do I begin bending the pitch on the preceding mora or on the actual downstep mora. It seems it happens on the preceding mora slightly, it doesn't sound to me like an instant shift in pitch. Sorry for the long comment!

Dogen
>>33658312

Hi Liam, there is a little bit of debate on how to think about the drop in pitch; I've always personally thought about it simply as a high pitch followed by a low pitch, but spectrographs reveal that the pitch continues to drop, albeit slightly, after a downstep has occurred. I'll be addressing using spectrographs in the next lesson to break things down in a bit more detail; do you mind waiting until then to see if your questions are answered? Incidentally I'll be talking about why some people often mishear down steps in this lesson!

Liam Cronin

Exellent i look forward to it. I tried the test today ( getting well above 80% correct so i'm happy with that) still at 7.01 the 3rd mora to me sounds like it isn't as low as the following mora(esp the first vowel) which kinda throws me off. I hear this in Atamadaka words alot so I mistake the downstep to be the 3rd mora and then the second must be high because the first two mora can't be the same pitch. so i think it's nakadaka. Also heiban words sound to be like they are gradually lowering in pitch each mora ever so slightly. Anyway these are just my own observations and things i need to address. I look forward to the video. thanks. ! ! Oh one more thing analysing the change in pitch when a downstep occurs on the second mora of an elongated vowel would be interesting and it might show a pitch bend clearly since there's no rearticulation.

Dogen
>>33721338

Hi Liam, the short answer is that you're correct, the pitch on the following mora is in fact lower, but the drop in pitch isn't nearly as dramatic as the downstep. Likewise, the pitch in 平板 words often does continue to drop, albeit very gradually—again I address all of this in the upcoming video. I'll look into the bend in the elongated vowels when I have time! Cheers!

Justice

Is it just me, or does Heiban just distinctly sound different than the other pitch accents? Not really sure how to describe it, but just the overall tone of Heiban words seem to be different, unrelated to the pitch.

Dogen
>>36224559

Hi Justice, this is 100% accurate, as 平板 words are the only kind of words that don't exhibit a downstep; they are the only accent-less words in Japanese, and thus sound very different from all others (and all English words for that matter). Cheers!

Eleanor Watson

I keep thinking 平板 words are 尾高, because of the slight fall in pitch towards the end, particularly the attached particle. Is there a way to be sure which one it is? (I don't know if you cover this in later lessons, I've only just started last week)

Mo Gasmi

Hi Dogen, Thank you for this wonderful video as always, and I’m a bit late to comment, but I had a question about words like あいしょうが. I didn’t have too much difficulty distinguishing between the 平板 and 中高 pattern, but I found that for the 中高 section, the downstep was a little ambiguous in that I couldn’t tell whether it was directly after the しょ or the う. Do elongated sounds like this exhibit a downstep halfway through the vowel? Or is it just the way it is displayed? Words like せんせい give me the same trouble, as though the downstep is recorded after the せ, I can’t quite catch whether the elongated sound is decreasing in pitch halfway through, or if it follows through to the end. I apologize as I’m almost certain you’ve covered this in some form in one of your other videos, but this had just come to mind during this lesson. Thank you so much as always!

Dogen
>>36702835

Hi Mo! The short answer is that the accent (last high mora) can’t occur on long / long vowels, as well as certain special sounds such as ん and the small っ. That said, I can understand your confusion, and as I haven’t done the best job through this series at explaining exactly what the accent is / whether or not it’s different from the ‘downstep’, etc., so for the time being I would encourage you to simply remember the aforementioned rule, (that an accent can’t occur on the aforementioned sounds), and to try and as closely mimic what you hear in the native recordings. If the rule overly complicates things for you and/or makes you second guess things, then I would instead encourage you to only try and mimic what you hear. In the future (in perhaps two or three lessons) I’ll try to break down exactly where the downstep starts, how/if it is different from a word’s accent, etc., in more detail. Apologies for not being able to help more at the moment!

Cachwir

Thank you for the video ! At the end, you focused on 中高 and 尾高 words, which helps native English speakers. As a French person, I'm having some difficulties with 平板 where I sometimes hear 頭高 instead (yeah, I know how weird it is, but I can't explain this).

Dogen
>>38927132

That's interesting, Cachwir—I haven't come across speakers with this issue before but I hope that you're able to distinguish between the two fairly soon! Cheers!

Lauren Kawamura

I feel like I'm back in my music theory class! I'll keep practicing until I get it! This is an amazing resource! Thank you so much, Dogen!!

Dogen
>>39906845

My pleasure Lauren—glad to hear that you're getting so much out of the series!

Shannon Johnson

Dogen, these practice drills were awesome! I think it’s really helping me hear the different sounds. It also became a fun activity to do with my 8-year old twin boys!! They joined in, even though they don’t know Japanese! :)

Sekai

Interestingly enough, Atamadaka was the most difficult for me, while Nakadaka and Odaka were quite moderate. My trouble with Odaka was with Heiban differences. Plus Atamadaka sounds similar to Nakadaka to me, so I am in a bit of a weird case apparently. I did pretty bad on the test, so I will have to rewatch it many times in the future.

Dogen
>>51387449

Very glad to hear that Shannon! And also glad to hear that your boys enjoyed the lesson haha!

Dogen
>>52709860

Hi Sekai! This is still very early on in the series, before really covering any rules, so it's quite normal to get a low score initially. Just concentrate on the important rules I cover in future lessons, as well as of course actively listen for pitch-accent in everyday speech, and in no time at all your ears will be able to hear things much more accurately. Thanks and good luck!

Guilherme Meireles Pereira

Hello Dogen, I was wondering where I could find more drills like this to practice my pitch-accent awareness, since I can't quite tell the paterns apart yet and I'm afraid that if I constantly use this video I'll end up knowing by heart which one is which without actually hearing the difference. I don't have any audio with my japanese learning material as of now. I'd also like to thank you for the quality of the content you make, it's really helpful.

Dogen
>>57242265

Hi Guilherme! Thank you for the kind words. I unfortunately don't have any other drills like this per say, but because I've replaced most of the earlier lessons with native recordings, you should start to pick up on things as you go. If you'd like to try and get some feedback now, however, you could try to use the program PRAAT to analyze your own pitch-accent, or even better, use a service like iTalki to get a native to give you direct feedback on your pitch. The key with this is to try and find someone who knows at least a little bit about pitch-accent. Hope this helps! Cheers!

JeanPierre Serrano

The 中高 and 尾高 practice was perfect! Those were the only ones I struggled with at the start but wow the last exercise cleaned that problem up.

RyanF

Hi Dogen, happy to be here and loving your lessons. I just had one quick question. I'm picking up the patterns quite quickly but I was wondering about words with 2 mora and 1 particle. Does that mean they're all going to be classified as 中高？The word can only be considered 尾高 if there are more than 2 mora that stay high until the particle? So short words with 2 mora then are all probably 中高 right?

RyanF
>>61368951

Actually this was just answered for me in 6.4 lol

Kirato Hope

Hi dogen I love the video but I’m having lots of trouble hearing the differences sometimes do you have any tips to help?

Lennart van der Velden

The point about the heiban pattern slightly dropping off as the word progresses is good to know! I actually tended to keep going up ever so slightly as I practiced

Brodie Port

It's confusing that heibann words are pronounced with a falling intonation at the end(with the particle; just not as dramatic as the other ones) but are still notated as the same pitch kept high. Can you please explain why the notation is different from what's actually being said? For example, at 8:06, あずもが is pronounced a/zumo\ga but is notated a/zumoga.

Emiliana Tan

難しですよ! Nakadaka and odaka keep getting me! I'll keep trying :)

Tom Wright

I have been studying Japanese for a long time and can tell what the Japanese words are before the Kanji meaning comes up but cannot tell you or hear the correct pitch accent!?!?

John Vienna

Interesting that the が at 05:48 is definitely one of the (several) "r" sounds we use in French. A good example of how we can't simply equate a Japanese kana to a roumaji letter sequence (ga), then believe we just have to pronounce that as we would in our own language (English, French, whatever...) A mora like が has so many fascinating variants.

Kate Rose

Hi! I have a small question. During exercise in that video, i heard that woman who was speaking sylabes to repeat, in head-high accent she got lower and lower with pitch after first syllable. After first drop from high to low, as i understand next syllables should be all at the same pitch, but she got lower with every syllable. Is that ok? Or everything after first drop should be pronounce with the same pitch?

II SoulSaver II

Not sure this is a problem or not for me, but I got all but 1 of the fake words correct (6:54 with けらまきが where I thought the ま was also high), then proceeded to get only 50% of the real words right. I guess it's kinda difficult for me to discern the pitch of 2-mora words. Also, 機能 threw me off a bit because I've heard 昨日 so much, but never knew the pitch-accent for it. Time to keep practicing! Edit: けらまきが issue covered in the VERY next lesson; I guess this is what it means to be light-years ahead of someone! :D

Robert S

I struggle with heiban and odaka. It starts low, then higher pitch, then the particle ga, but I can't tell if the ga is at the same high pitch tone (heiban) ... or did it fall? Not easy.

Sashin Exists

I've done this a few times, but I'm finding it really difficult. I'm also worried that when I get a little success, it seems to only be for the video and I can't hear pitch accent at all anywhere else. The most successful I've been is in repeating the word in the video but just humming the syllables. This doesn't translate to listening in real time as I really need to stop and think about it. I'm having trouble with other videos later on, I'm kind of perceiving being able to hear pitch accent at all as a kind of bottleneck that seems to make future videos less useful (like when trying to remember the pitch accents of words like in chapters 8, 9, and 10 I feel like actually learning there pitch accents is impossible without being able to detect it and what I'm really doing is just memorising the binary patterns.) Any advice? My aim is to get to the point where I can very clearly and very obviously hear pitch accent in regular speech and apply it when I'm doing listening practice. I listen to a lot of japanese audio at least passively through the day and it would be good if I could make it more efficient by being able to hear the pitch accent.

Dogen
>>97042388

Hi, Sashin. Keep practicing, for sure, and if you’re not recording yourself that can help as well. Another trick is to find a speaker that can teach pitch accent on iTalki or a similar service and have them give you direct feedback about your pronunciation, or to have them really exaggerate the patterns of words until you’re able to hear them. It took me a while to pick up on the 平板 pattern. Getting direct feedback helped me a lot. In learning how to say it the right way I suddenly started being able to hear it. Try reviewing the introduction to the 4 pitch accent patterns lesson which has different English words with the 4 patterns. Can you hear the differences in the English words? If yes, then it’s probably a matter of practice. がんばって！