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Episode 6: Introduction to Japanese phonetics (pitch accent and pronunciation) (Patreon)

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2020-08-26 04:57:06
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2026-06
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Bibliography
Japanese Phonetics Index Page

Good afternoon Patrons!

In this video, we use clear, native-speech recordings to introduce the two primary Japanese pitch-accent rules, as well as the four fundamental Japanese pitch-accent patterns. If you're new to the series, this is where you really want to start paying attention; I believe that this is the most important lesson in the series, as it lays the groundwork for everything else!

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

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Comments

Froyo

Dogen, I feel really lucky that I can learn 2 languages here

Phen-the Moogle

I've been fluent in Japanese and tried doing more monotone the past several years so ironically 平板 is easiest for me. And OMG learning these different patterns is soooooo ear-opening at this stage, I can't even put it into words!! It's like "Woah, I was so close on a lot of these without even thinking about them or knowing they existed, and I can tell I was slightly off on some, especially with how they flow together with the particle, it makes a lot more sense now!!!" This course is legendary to me and it's the main thing I need now in my life to regain confidence. Thanks so much!!!!

Dogen
>>103619246

It's great to hear you're getting so much out of the course. Thank you for the support and good luck with your studies!

DoubleDoubleYea

Hi Dogen, I have a question about the Heiban pitch pattern. At minute 13:16, when using "America is" to demonstrate the pitch pattern in English, I noticed the pitch of "is" dips slightly, contradicting the Heiban pattern shown as flat. Does this mean a small pitch deviation is allowed for a mora to be considered "straight" rather than a "dip," as heard in the Atamadaka pattern? For example, in the word "Mega," the pitch seems to drop by about an octave between moras. Also for the word Kuniga at 12:25, the Ga particle, according to the pitch pattern, should remain the same pitch as Ni, but instead drops in pitch. Same thing with Gakuseiga at 15:41. This seems contradicting to me and is making me very confused.

Dogen
>>143808256

Hi, DoubleDoubleYea! JP here, Dōgen's business partner. I'm helping manage the messages here on Patreon. Good ear! I'm certain what you're hearing is the "subtle drop in pitch", which is covered in Lesson 6.3 (https://www.patreon.com/posts/japanese-episode-35173952). If you scroll through the other comments here, you'll see that a few others noticed the same thing you did. I hope this helps!

Jill Splades

The biggest struggle I'm having with these videos is that I have to rewatch the full videos to review things, but I can't always remember which video I learned something it (I cannot search for topics). Would it be at all possible to get notes/handouts/transcripts with these videos so I have text I can review alongside the audio?

Dogen
>>168855566

Hi, Jill. JP here. Thank you for your comment. We've had a few inquiries like yours over the years, and your asking prompted a little discussion this morning. We think we have something that might work that we can start working on in the near future. Again, thanks!

Michael

I just signed up for your Patreon and I guess I was lucky to be at this part of your series just when you upload a remake of the original episode. I just want to say thank you for the effort you put into those videos - you are helping me and many other people by a great deal. I've been learning Japanese for a few years now and I've always wondered why, even though grammatically everything was correct and the pronunciation itself was fine, me speaking Japanese always sounded somehow off. Even though I'm still only in the beginning of your series, so many things are already starting to make sense for me, especially when realizing that I was actually using the wrong pitch-accent rules (or creating some for myself that don't really exist in Japanese) for even simple words like 男 or 学生. I'm really glad that I found your videos and I'm looking forward to watching through your whole series! Thank you so much!

Enrico Paolini

The ending music definitely caught me by surprise! Looking forward to the next episode, keep up the good work! =)

Jamal Taylor

Hey Dogen, I just joined your Patreon and I wanted to say I really appreciate your work. For my situation, I am a 40-year-old male who is married to Japanese women and have twins. I studied Japanese off and on but now that I have kids I am more committed to studying Japanese. You mentioned in your other videos that as we age our ability to recognize new sounds diminishes. Is it too late for me? It really is important to me and my family that I improve my Japanese skills. I work a full-time job as a developer so my time is limited. How much time should I be studying daily? I really want to focus on my pronunciation and see progress. I do record my voice and I sound sooo bad. And I am not seeing any improvements. What can I do?

Dogen
>>42878912

Thanks Enrico! Haha yes I had to change it as I've been having some copyright issues with the previous track recently. I appreciate your continued support. Cheers!

Dogen
>>42865945

My pleasure Michael! I personally went through a very similar phase when I just started learning about pitch-accent. Thank you for signing up, and good luck with your future studies!

Dogen
>>42907183

Hi Jamal. The answer that I typically give in this situation is that you may not ever sound 100% native, or even 90% native, but by implementing pitch-accent knowledge into your studies you can certainly make a jump from let's say 50% to 60-80%, depending on your study regime. What I would recommend for your specific situation is to rewatch this lesson multiple times until you really have a good understanding of the core pitch-accent patterns, and then to listen to more native recordings (movies, etc.) while trying to pick-up on the patterns discussed in this lesson. By doing this, and by implementing the rules covered in lessons 8-10 (what I believe to be the fundamental rules), you should sound make a lot of progress in as little as a month or two, though again, it's best not to expect to sound native. Incidentally, I would concentrate more on the active listening for the first month, and then trying to do a bit of output of the various pitch-accent patterns after you can actually start to hear them. Hope this helps!

Alexander J Nicholas

Hi Dōgen, nice update that nicely summaries your previous points. I would say though that I think your rendition of these is also a nice accompaniment as firstly, your microphone has better range capture with the highs and lows not clipped or compressed, and secondly that a male example of these I think is easier to perhaps replicate for another male to voice. Is this Strawberrygirl? 🤔

Dogen
>>42935743

Hi Alex, this is a good point—I'll try to see if I can get some native male speakers to help in the future! Thanks for the input!

Shannon Johnson

This was awesome and I’m sure will be a great reference for me (I’m sure I will watch it a few more times). Thank you for sharing your knowledge!

Dogen
>>51385732

My pleasure, Shannon! I'm glad to hear that you found the lesson so helpful!

Fawful81080

Hi Dogen your lessons are amazing, so the intro and outro songs :3 Could you tell me the name of the 0:00 & 16:18 music please?

Alexander S. Cirko

Hi Kevin, I really love your content and also this pitch-accent program. It helps me greatly to understand the concept of pitch in the Japanese language and to figure out things that I need to be mindful of. Last but not least, it is also just inherently interesting to watch. Not too terribly long ago, I actually heard for the first time that pitch-accent even existed in Japanese. It came as a big shock and almost discouraged me from studying at first, thinking I could never master this anyway. However, the more I looked into it, I pleasantly realized that I did a lot correct already, without even knowing of its existence, just due to trying to "mimic the sound" natives make to the best of my capabilities from start. Of course I have a long way to go still and your course certainly helps. Thank you!

Dogen
>>52216032

My pleasure Dr. Placksi! It's glad to hear that you're already in a good position, and I'm sure that you'll be able to pick up even more useful information as you go through the series. thank you for your support, and good luck with your future studies! Cheers!

Juan Andres Diaz

Hey Dogen, Thanks a lot for tackling pitch accent. Your content is second to none. Question about 平板: I know heiban is generally defined as flat, but I feel like the morae following the first high one are a little lower, kind of like going from "F to F flat" in music. Do you know what I mean? So strictly speaking, is heiban truly flat after the rise?

アリャン

This is extremely useful. I know so many people say: HAna or GAkusei instead of haNA or gaKUSEI. My question: will there be a time you get a feeling for the right pitch or do you need to remember it for every new word you learn?

Dogen
>>57530305

Hi アリャン, this series is actually dedicated to learning important pitch-accent rules such that you can memorize a few dozen rules for most words, rather than trying to remember every word one by one. Cheers!

Kentaro Kawamura

Hey Dogen. I was just doing some research and I read that in 平板 words, if the first two morae form a heavy syllable, then there is no initial rise in pitch, like in 東京, 観光, 回想. From what I can tell with my own ears, it seems to be true. I would love to hear any thoughts on the topic.

Dogen
>>59705108

Hi Kentaro. I think I've read something similar somewhere as well. It's certainly possible, especially considering the fact that most 平板 words don't have a significant rise in pitch when said at normal (rapid) speed. Apologies for not being able to comment more on this, but yes again it's certainly plausible! Cheers.

Valdemar H. Lorenzen

Hi Dogen. First of all, thank you very much for your awesome videos, they're pretty much invaluable (your sketches too, I'm a big fan). Now with that out of the way, it may be just me, but when she (the recording) says "America is" with 平板 pitch (13:15), it sounds to me like she falls a semi tone on the word "is". So I guess, in essence, she falls half way back to base pitch. Is that correct or am I just hearing things I shouldn't be? Thank you for your time.

Vincent K

Hi Dogen! Sorry for a very weird question: This is maybe a bit meta, but would you be able to give the pitch accent for the terms used to described the four basic types of pitch accent (頭高, 中高, 尾高, 平板)? E.g. is "平板" actually pronounced using the 平板 pitch accent? I'm particularly confused about 尾高 , as to my untrained ear, what the natives are saying here https://forvo.com/word/%E5%B0%BE%E9%AB%98/#ja sound different from what's being said in the video.

Dogen
>>63459768

Hi Vincent. Only 中高 and 平板 are listed in NHK, and they are listed as 平板. I thus can't comment on what the other pronunciations are, and / or whether these native recordings are correct, though I've always pronounced all four as 平板. Thank you.

Some_guy

What about words like "かもしれない ” All the pitch accent dictionaries that I've checked have this word essentially as having a down step on か but a rise れない , or HLLHHH. I'm guessing it's because it's not a plain dictionary form verb. Is there an episode that explains instances like this? (edited for clarity)

Dogen
>>63510904

Hi Hardy, I think that what's happening is that it's interpreting かもしれない as かも + 知れない, rather than the single word かもしれない, which is 頭高.

Some_guy

Thank you for your response. That was really confusing for me. Does the Apple dictionary list it correctly? I'm trying to find an app or a way I might be able to access their dictionary while on Windows/Android so that I have another reference next time.

Dogen
>>63629803

Hi Hardy, the Apple dictionary is based on the スーパー大辞林 dictionary, which generally does a good job, but isn't quite as reliable as something like the NHK dictionary, which is why I like to confirm with a different source when I want to be really sure about something. I believe that many people have commented on good Windows alternatives in the comment section for lesson 7. Cheers!

Brodie Port

All of the heibann words say that the particle remains high but when you listen to it, the particle is pronounced lower than the previous mora. It's close but definitely a bit lower. Why is that and which one should I do? Thank you