5 Common Japanese Word Pairs You're Pronouncing Wrong 

Very well explained! in fact this is the first very good explanation of the pitch accent I've seen. I've watched several others (quite a while ago) but for some reason didn't understand they very well. As I've just written in another comment, Japanese is a language I choose back in high school many year ago, but it's still interesting seeing such an explanation. Btw, I ended up here after finding your channel through Norwegian pitch accent. I have to say though, in Standard Japanese the difference between the accents are somehow more easily noticeable and especially reproduceable compared to the examples you gave in Norwegian. Keep up the good work! Greetings from an 🇮🇩 in 🇩🇪 .

Great advice! Well made video! I am looking forward to hearing/seeing more!

In my experience (been living in Japan since 2006), Japanese will be able to tell what you're talking about by context. You'll never get a bridge at a restaurant if you get the pitch accent for chopsticks wrong. It's a thing, it gives you a foreigner's accent, but in the grand scheme of things, not important if you're getting across. It's necessary for students of Japanese to remember that no matter what, unless Japanese is your native language, you will simply always have an accent. If your pitch accent is perfect, other things will give you away like your vowel or consonant pronunciation. Your grammar and/or word usage. 髪 does indeed mean "hair," but particularly the hair on your head. We just don't have a word for "head hair" like the Japanese do. (Or if we do I've never heard it.) 髪の毛 doesn't mean "hair of your hair," you're saying "hair of your head hair," where "head hair" would be the specific word for the hair on your head." In Spanish we have a few words for hair, "cabello," which can be singular or plural. This usually means long hair. "Ella tiene cabello corto." She has short hair. "Encontré un cabello en mi sopa." I found a hair in my soup." "Pelo" is another word for hair which is interchangeable with "cabello," but it sounds a little less formal. We use this word is often with collocations related to doing something to the hair on the head. "Me fui a cortar el pelo." I went to cut my hair. And then we have "greña," which often refers to one strand of hair. "Greñas" means "strands of hair," and sounds vulgar. "Lo agarre de las greñas." I pulled him by the hair(s). Or you can say "Le jale una greña del pelo." I pulled one strand of hair from the hair (on his head). "Hair of the hair" is an oversimplification of 髪の毛. But what if you wanted to say 神の毛... hair of the gods... 🤔

Thank you! Very helpful video. Do you have any resources you suggest for someone just starting to study pitch accent?