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Episode 10: Pitch accent patterns for nouns in phrases (Patreon)

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2017-01-09 11:10:23
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2026-06
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Bibliography
Japanese Phonetics Index Page

Good morning, everyone!

In this episode I talk about the pitch-accent patterns for nouns in phrases. Specifically, I address how common auxiliary verbs such as だ, です, etc., attach to nouns. The information in this episode is a bit more challenging than previous lessons, so if you have any questions whatsoever please do not hesitate to let me know! Always happy to help.

Best from Kyushu,

Dōgen

Files

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Comments

Chase Dahl

I didn't realize the difference between the rashii's! This kind of got me wondering about how pitch accent is affected with the addition of certain auxiliary words. For example そう, as in 行きそう, 会えそう, 美味しそう. There's also the hearsay そう, as in 行くそう, 会えるそう, 美味しいそう. Or 方 as in 教え方. Is pitch accented affect uniquely when attached to the て form (e.g. 教えてください, やって欲しい), or is it the same as the sentence-level pitch accent? What about the contraction of てしまう (ちゃう/じゃう) as in 食べちゃう/死んじゃう, or something like しちゃダメ?

Dogen
>>10602046

Hi Chase. These are all topics I intend on covering in the upcoming advanced pitch-accent videos, but て is usually unaffected (more or less), regardless of what comes after it, and there are multiple ways to say the 方 form, but I believe the correct rule is to say it with the downstep on the か for verbs with downsteps (it also seems acceptable to say it on the final た, though I prefer the KAta variant), or with the heiban pattern for heiban verbs. The NHK発音アクセント辞典 has a fantastic verb table which covers all of these, minus the ちゃう, I believe—if you'd like to learn more I'd encourage you to check it out! It's truly a fantastic resource. Apologies for not being able to address these right here—many of them are quite complicated!

Samuel

Hey man, I'd like to know the exceptions!

Andre

Hello Dogen. In which ressources I could find pitch accent for particles. (for examples: ところ、なら、なり、こそ、かしら)

Dogen
>>19530809

Hi Andre! I've seen all of these in the 新明解日本語アクセント辞典！ <a href="https://www.amazon.co.jp/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.amazon.co.jp/</a>新明解日本語アクセント辞典-第2版-CD付き-金田一-春彦/dp/4385136726/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1549243873&sr=8-1&keywords=新明解日本語アクセント辞典

Knocky

Hi Dogen, Have you covered the pitch accent of conjugated verbs ending with ~てみたい or ~てみる in later videos? Thanks in advance!

Dogen
>>25592285

Hi Jenny! I have not covered them yet, but can definitely cover them in an upcoming video. Sorry for not being more help at the moment!

Abhi Ilindra

What are the Japanese fonts you use in this video? They look really nice, and I'd like something in my repertoire besides just MS Mincho.

Dogen
>>28259785

Hi Abhi! I have the font set to the English Avenir Next Condensed Demi Bold and type into it in Japanese and this is what comes out! That said I really like the Japanese font Hiragino Sans!

Uly ___

What does ka da mean? (I found all the other ones)

Ole Stegelmann

Sooo, the "he's very Japanese like"-日本人らしい works like a compound? And is treated as one single adjective? While in the "I heard that he's Japanese"-日本人らしい the らしい works like です etc because it can also be used after a sentence and change its meaning as a whole (or maybe the 日本人 is a complete sentence here)..? I'm noticing that I don't know the correct terms for the different word classes in Japanese :D still a long way to go but I like this systematic approach more and more

Dogen
>>29395538

Hi Ole, I suppose you could say that it is treated like a compound! I don't actually think about things this way, I just memorize the pitch-accent pattern based on meaning, as I find this the easiest; for me it makes it confusing to try and also think about what kind of word it is, etc. Thus, I can't really answer your question directly—apologies for not being able to help more here!

Ole Stegelmann

Thanks for your answer, Dogen! Maybe I should concentrate on your lessons for now. I don't want to waste time with learning things that won't improve my speaking ability in the end

Ian Davies

Is the final 'u' in 'です' more pronounced when attached to the heiban words, or is that just my imagination? I've always wondered why I sometimes hear it more pronounced ("desu" rather than "des"), but I'd always assumed it was down to the person's individual accent or how formal they were being.

Bryan Nguyen

Hi Dogen, I had a question about 平板 and the －らしい forms. You said that with a 平板 noun, the pitch accent for both －らしい forms are the same. In a conversation, how would you tell the difference between the two? I would assume context, but if both meanings make sense in the context is there any other way to tell? Loving the content so far, thanks!

Dogen
>>35478616

Hi Bryan! There is no way to tell from pronunciation alone, you have to determine by context, as you mentioned. Unfortunately there are no other methods that I'm aware of. Cheers!

matt

Hi Dogen. I am having an awesome time with this series. A thousand thank yous! I have a nit-picky question about your use of the word "accent." At 4:06 of episode 6.4 you describe the highest mora as "accent" whereas in this video at 1:00 you describe the down-step as the accent. From what I've seen so far in your videos it seems like the down-steps in Japanese are perceived as stronger like down-strokes like on a cello, unlike English where the up-steps are stronger like on a viol da gamba. Does the upbeat in the episode 6.4 odaka example have an equally "distinct emphasis" (as you define accent in episode 5) for Japanese speakers, or are you just using "accent" in a general way to describe any change in pitch accent? I apologize for the nit-picky question; I'm very interested in this because I study prosody and rhythm in English and want to eventually learn how Japanese people perceive these differences in their own language (understanding of course that what English does with its stress accent in prosody is totally different from Japanese). Thanks a lot for your work! I am really really loving this series.

Dogen
>>35788018

Hi Matt, thanks for the question, and sorry for the confusion. This is my mistake, and something I need to be careful about in the future; I've sometimes used 'accent' and 'downstep' interchangeably to indicate the last high mora before the dramatic pitch drop, and/or the last high mora AND the dramatic pitch drop, when in reality (at least how I precisely define things) the 'accent' is the last high mora before the dramatic pitch drop, and the 'downstep' is the dramatic drop in pitch itself from high to low. I'm not entirely sure what you're asking with the second half of the question, but I'll do my best to answer. Japanese words can have slight low to high changes in pitch, and slight high to low changes in pitch without having accents, as accents require a dramatic downstep to occur. For example the heiban word 鼻, or nose, starts low, and goes up a little bit, as in haNA (note that in this case the capital NA only indicates a minor rise in pitch). This word doesn't have an accent, or 'the high pitch before the drop' because there is no drop in pitch in this example. And, even if we attach a particle like が, then there will only be a negligible drop in pitch, as illustrated in lesson 6.4. Thus, because 鼻が (haNAGA) starts low, goes up a bit, and then more or less stays up, the word has no accent, as again, the accent in Japanese is specifically the high mora which occurs immediately before a dramatic drop in pitch. On the other hand, in the odaka word flower, 花, the pitch starts low, and goes high, again, as in 'haNA', but if there is a particle that follows, as in 花が then the pitch will start low, rise, the drop dramatically, as in haNAga. In these circumstances, the NA is the accent (the last high mora before the drop in pitch) and the downstep is the drop in pitch that begins at the end of NA and continues throughout GA (GA is said with clearly falling pitch, as shown in lesson 6.4). Note that the 'accent' and the 'downstep' are inherently linked. That is to say, again, the accent isn't simply the highest pitch in a word, but the last high mora that occurs specifically before a downstep. And this is why I've sometimes used the words interchangeably in the past; because an accent can't occur without a downstep, and a downstep can't occur without an accent. Again, the accent is the last high mora before a dramatic drop in pitch, and the downstep is this dramatic drop in pitch itself. Hope that this helps! Note that I'm not well versed in musical terminology, so I unfortunately don't understand words such as down-stroke, up-step, or viol de gamba, and due to time restrictions, am unable to devote the time necessary to properly learn such terminology. Thank you!

Dogen
>>3644166

Hi Andre, I'm a bit cautious about putting the original files out there; if you can send me the time segment ( 0:00 ~ 1:37, for example ) you would like I can send you that :)

Dogen
>>3645707

Thank you very much Rickard! We are closing in! :D Appreciate the continued support!

Master Chief

I'd like to know what the exceptions are

Clare Kappenman

Hi Dogen, I can feel my brain expanding as I watch this--the らしい thing absolutely blew my mind, because I'd always known there was some kind of pitch difference, but I couldn't quantify it. For practice, I've been going through the Genki vocab lists, which I use for my own students, and comparing Suzuki-kun with my attempts at pronouncing the vocab according to your rules. Biggest surprise so far was 財布 which I have always pronounced 頭高. My mouth physically fights me as I try to pronounce it 平板! Thank you so much, these lessons are really helping me from a professional development perspective.

Clare Kappenman
>>39587429

Oh I forgot to ask my question! What about past tense -- だった and でした? I figure みたい and らしい will follow adjective rules so I'll learn those when I get to that video, but I wasn't sure if you would ever come around to past tense of です・だ.

Courtland Gavan-Glover

I'm commenting late on this video because I only just pledged but I wanted to see if you could confirm my suspicion about the nuance of らしい (the 'seems like' 平板型）. If this suspicion is correct, オーストラリア人らしい would not be used to refer to a Japanese person who lives in Australia and walks around 裸足, but to an Australian who enjoys barbecued shrimp. In other words, using らしい implies that the preceding noun is clearly true of the subject it's being applied to. If you wanted to say that the Japanese person is acting very Australian you would need to say something along the lines of 'アーストラリア人っぽい' or 'オージーみたい' , not オーストラリア人らしい. Hopefully this makes sense. Is this true or have I been duped? Thanks Dogen

Dogen
>>4211583

Hi Courtland! Thanks for your support and the interesting question. While your suspicion may be founded in truth (the textbook definition for らしい—according to some sources—could support your thesis, though I was unable to find a definition that did so explicitly), オーストラリア人らしい日本人 is used in conversation / formal speech by native speakers. Here is a video for reference (check out the title at the very beginning): <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK57wkBBLbY" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK57wkBBLbY</a> hope that this helps!

switz mka

Hello dogen! A bit unrelated to this topic, but I couldn't find a place to put it -- my American brain tends to mishear changes in volume as changes in pitch -- and thusly I hear downsteps when I shouldn't be, especially if one mora is pronounced a bit louder than another. Is there a way for me to "un-train" this way of hearing things?

Dogen
>>51602847

Hi Switz. This is a bit tricky, as when you raise the volume of a word then the pitch tends to go up a bit as well, which could be one of the reasons you're hearing what you are. Unfortunately I think the only thing you can really do is immerse yourself in as much native Japanese as possible while also actively listening for the four pitch-accent patterns. I've found that in doing this over time I gradually get a better hang for pitch-accent, and how to naturally mimic it. Again apologies for not being able to help more with this one, but I think that by going through this series and learning the various rules I talk about you'll make a lot of progress, and also learn the answers to many additional questions that you may not just realize that you have. Hope that this helps a bit, and good luck with your future studies! Cheers.

Diane Yang

It seems like while です is usually pronounced like "dess", sometimes the す is pronounced more prominently, and I've never been sure what determines that. In this video, I noticed that you say "dess" in the examples for the downstep patterns, whereas in the 平板 example you pronounce the す. Is that a general pattern?

Dogen
>>5801961

Hi Diane. There are very few instances in which a phonetic rule will dictate a clearly articulated す. In other words, based entirely off of phonetic rules it's almost always safe to say "des". That said, intonation (the way a speaker enunciations certain words in order to more effectively convey their ideas) does affect the clarity of す. So, native speakers often do articulate す to a higher degree when trying to convey something. Furthermore, women also tend to articulate す more than men. In other words, it's not wrong to articulate す in certain situations, but the pitch-accent should almost always be low. I tend to articulate す more after 平板 words as I'm concentrating on the word 'desu' comparatively more. Please let me know if this doesn't answer your question :)

Kenzo Lee

hello. I'd like to know about the exceptions you mentioned about in the beginning of the video if that's alright? thank you. :)

soldierspymain

When using －らしい in its 平板 form, I notice that you put a down step at the very end in the video. Is this to emulate the natural downwards shift in pitch as a sentence goes on or am I missing something? Doesn't 平板 stay high?

Dogen
>>63426387

Hi Urkel, I'm not quite understanding your question. Do you mind re-wording it and telling me exactly where in the video you're talking about?

Claes Wächtler

Hi Kimi/Dōgen, after playing around with Prosody tutor Suzukikun I found that essentially auxiliaries like みたい and らしい in its ‘I heard’ -form act the same way together with verbs as they do with nouns. How about the others? Best from Mexico, Claes

Jeffrey Tang

you should update the exceptions on your post :P I'm interested in seeing those too :1

Mark Gunter

Recently found your channel, Love it!. Do you have or recommend a book or a print of a list of words with the pitch accents patterns on it?

Dogen
>>7466800

Hi Mark! Thanks for signing up! I usually recommend the shinmeikai accent dictionary, which can be found here: <a href="https://www.amazon.co.jp/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.amazon.co.jp/</a>新明解日本語アクセント辞典-第2版-CD付き-金田一-春彦/dp/4385136726/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1506757380&sr=8-5&keywords=アクセント

Laura Franke

I love these! I've been so desperate for clear pitch-accent breakdowns and explanations, so this is like a God-send! I want to learn it all so I'm definitely interested in the exceptions mentioned in this video!

Anthony Fransway

Hi! I am quite impressed. I have been seriously studying Japanese for 7+ years, yet this series has already taught me SO much! This has been quite an important step; although I have subconsciously noticed pitch accent in a lot of ways, I never consciously acknowledged it. I never really knew it held THAT much importance, such as the case with らしい。 I did not notice the difference between the versions of らしい。 Also, could you add me to the message list for the exceptions? Thanks!