This is so true! My husband was Japanese and lived in Japan for 10-11 years.No one told me this but I just heard it over and over….like a musical sound. We call it different accents on syllables….long and short. Thank you for this…I cant stand the sound that many people use…..the word itself is only a small part….the flow of sound is what makes it real!
Interesting! Never knew about pitch. You explain it in such easy to understand way. I also notice that your presentation (your voice) is so soothing. I can listen to you for hours. Maybe you can explore doing an ASMR?
I knew nothing of this til' I found a book by a Japanese dude in a Canadian library. Either way, the amount of useful information you put on the screen during your explanation is perfecto. I love getting the kanji and furigana in real time like this. Great teaching and editing.
Hi friends! Good luck for your practicing Japanese. Here's an excellent video, although it's for advanced learners. So, taking a more strictly academic approach, paying attention to subtleties. In fact, as a rule of thumb, Japanese is mostly flat. In Kansai-ben spoken around Osaka,makes a unique exception with more marked difference. Just follow her, closer to the standard version.
Es :"como dispararte en las piernas"me agrado esa parte ,mirar x ti...Si se va.. desearle lo mejor,es justo que tienes q autovalorarte,ella quiso y empujo hacia ese momento.....Amada como alimentan tus palabras
1. There actually is a dictionary that gives you the pitch sound of almost all Japanese words. 2. I thought ~90% of all Japanese words had a 平板 pitch. Correct?
I have a question about multiple meanings of one word like "hana" for example. It could be "Nose" or "Flower". If i see the Kanji i know what it means. But how do you get the right context like in a conversation? I mean if the person holding flowers in one hand the context is clearly. But in a phone situation or similar...how do you differentiate in that situations?
Even on a phone, you can tell which one the other person is talking about from the context most of the time. Of course, misunderstanding sometimes happens, but you can always ask the other person when the meaning isn't clear😊
You could think of it as each word’s accent, as if there were written accents. If muchísimo didn’t have that accent and you pronounced it as MUchi SImo, it wouldn’t easily be understood. The point here is the same, if you don’t stress the correct syllable (mora), it will clearly not sound native and might get misunderstood as well. At least, that’s what I take away as essential.
I agree. Most of my books don't mention anything about pitch. I'm glad I found a couple of RU-vidr videos that explain it and actually give you the rules (wakadaka, etc) with correct Standard/Tokyo pronunciation. Thank you!
Watching this video after reading about pitch accent online and hearing that my native Farsi has the same type of pitch accent as Japanese. It is indeed, shockingly similar! The loanwords you used as examples in this video, most of them are said exactly the same in Farsi
I've known that pitch accent helps distinguish similarly sounding words, but I never realized that it is also used to clearly separate words in a sentence. Now I'll be definitely trying to analyze every spoken sentence trying to hear the variations in pitch between words.
I was taught that there are no real rules for pitch, so you should just learn them for each word. You've narrowed it down to just four types, where onlt the 中高 words need to be known word-by-word. That simplifies it so much! I found pitch weirdly consistent for a while now, but I wasn't able to put it into words. 本当にありがとうございます!
If we just got rid of all this superfluous stuff, we'd be left with just words and then we could do a complete rewrite of language so that there is only ONE language and one that is the BEST, most LOGICAL and everyone would just learn that and the world would function so much better. People from India don't always accent English sentences correctly but they are still understood. Even English is a cobbled-together language with tons of illogical, unnecessary nonsense. One day... someone will follow my idea and REINVENT language just like the metric system is easier to use than the old English system.
Thank you for the explanation. Are there categories of words that usually fall under certain patterns which would make it easier to learn? I’ve noticed that a lot of adjectives are 中高 and that a lot of 4 mora 2 kanji nouns are 平板. If so, please could you teach us some of these as they’re really difficult to find.
This remimnds me of the time a Japanese instructor pronounced the word "konnichiwi". She made the distinction of saying "kon-N-ichiwa", which I suspect is often ignored when this word is said very quickly. We all tend to slur our words, in any language. I guess "sumimasen" is the same, as it's often pronounced "suimasen", without the first "m". You would make a great English sensei for high school kids..maybe you already are--lol
Your videos are wonderful - your voice is so soothing, not to mention you speak in such a clear and easy to understand way. I'm really glad I found your channel, thank you for your hard work! ✨
I second that! Not only is the topic presented cleary but it also makes for such a welcome change to hear a teacher speak in a low voice. Calming, yet still very much informative!
Would like to improve how you sound in Japanese? Check it out! www.speakjapanesenaturally.com/ You'll learn about Japanese phonetics, such as pronunciation, rhythm, pitch accent, intonation and so on. Those knowledge will help you sound natural when speaking Japanese. You can also subscribe a newsletter from the link above.
This is so important! Idk why teachers don’t emphasize this early on. Maybe because they assume learners will just get pitch naturally but that’s never true 😅
That is very interesting! I learn langauges by sound or sound combinations. That means I usually don't have problems with pitch, but it is interesting to know that there is a concept like this - especially when learning new expressions.
Sensei, can you give other examples of different dialects please? If not, then that’s alright. Also, if I learn the Tokyo dialect, would I have troubles understanding other dialects if I travel to different prefectures?
Everybody in Japan would understand you if you speak the Tokyo dialect, which is also called the standard Japanese. But I’m not sure if you can understand people who speak with a strong accent. I don’t think I can understand them either. I had a difficulty understanding my grandma who was from Kagoshima. But the national broadcast is in the Tokyo dialect, so especially younger generations could speak to you in the standard Japanese.
@@SpeakJapaneseNaturally That’s good to know. I just know the I’m cold sound in Hakata ben (su su su) or okini meaning thank you or very much in Kyoto. But anyways thank you for the vids. Keep it up and God bless 🙂✌️👍
Wow, you are amazing!! Is there anyone available to teach me the Japanese language. However I am in Los Angeles California. P.s. wishing the best to all the survivors in Japan's earthquake 2024😇💪🙏
❤ Thanks, very interesting. I should have know that when I started learning only with a book before the invention of youtube (I know, I’m old) … now it’s maybe too late, but no worries everybody knows I’m a Spanish gaijin…. 😂
Your voice is so soothing it makes me want to keep rewatching your videos 💜 Thanks for breaking down such complex topics in simple and direct explanations! I'm feeling more motivated now :)
Wow this was so helpful! Some Japanese RU-vidrs should make a coarse or classes. Many people would love to learn but have little access to do so. Self teaching is very hard.
I dont know Japanese but when I hear japanese speak they sound like robots, the voice is all monotone, am I just watching bad acting in Japanese movies?
It's interesting how some Western/American RU-vidrs insist that pitch accent is important, but, Japanese RU-vidrs says something like "Don't worry about it. We'll know what you mean from context." I'm going to trust what Japanese ppl say on this
Both are right. It depends on if your goal is to speak naturally. If it is, you should start trying to master pitch early on. If you just want to be understood, and don't mind "having an accent", you don't need to worry so much about it.
don't worry about pitch. I lived in Tokyo for 8 years and didn't learn this there. Good pitch is just one of those details that make you sound more native, but for most of us we're so far away from native that it doesn't matter.
Your voice is very comforting. I bet you're good with children. I'm sure I'd enjoy talking with you. Keep up the great work. I'm not studying Japanese but I learned a lot by accidentally finding your upload. Take care and thanks.
6:58 the dotted visualization was confusing me so another way to interpret this is on words where you let the pitch drop, you let the word "rest", or say it with the energy going down
Thank you, all respect for your work and love and affection for you, beloved teacher, smells, kisses, treats, all over you. You masterfully explained the high low variable accent, in fact the Japanese variable accent is tonal too, but the difference between Japanese and other Sinological/Sinospheric Asian languages is that the Japanese variable accent uses vocal and musical tones, low and medium, in other words, they vary from low__medium to medium___low. There are no high tones in Japanese, only medium and low tones, the vocalization and musicalization of natural Japanese and low and medium tones aimed at imagination, reason, reflection and meditation, this makes Japanese different from Taiwanese, Mandarin, Vietnamese, Thai, Laotian and Burmese. The sister language of Japanese that uses this same variable accent phonetics is Shanghainese, with low___medium and medium___low, which is tonal but a low and medium tonal that aligns words, phonemes and phrases in a straight line in a low or medium tone. Wonderful explanation, thank you for the class. Kisses on the heart 💓❤️💋💋💋🌹🌹🌹
As someone who learned English and trained orally, we did speak extensively about pitch in English. How words and sentences rise and fall. So it’s just training your ear to hear the pitch and replicate. The feel comes with practice
Right, I should have used "mora" instead of "syllable. " I thought that word was easier for English speakers to understand, but I shouldn't have. あん、じゃ、とお、しょー , each has one syllable, two mora.
for me, I learned japanese accent naturally by listening to videos like these, also musics, movies and anime. because of that, I have trouble speaking in english because I have a habit of saying chansu instead of chance and somehow I can tell someone is a beginner when their japanese accent is not right.
i learned japanese accent naturally by watching the waterfall flow over the beautiful rocks... for me, all speech is difficult because i am so awestruck by beauty... i guess being Japanese also helped but only marginally it was mostly the waterfall and nature for me
I'm just starting to learn new kanji meanings and I'd like to know if there is some web page or dictionary where I can find the pitch of each word, please. By the way, congrats. Yours is a wonderful work! Keep up doing it!
How about this page? www.gavo.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ojad/eng/pages/home And as for your smartphone, you can use “JAccent”. You can find it on App store or Google Play store 😊
Been learning Japanese for a year, and I can simply not hear the pitch. I just can't seem to grasp this concept. Like is pitch actually what they mean, because the melodic pitch doesn't seem to change. This is still a great video though.
I can relate. I can definitely hear the difference, but I couldn’t swear if it pitched up or pitched down lol. To me the high mora sounds like a stressed syllable, as if there was an accent over it like in Spanish.
Don't think too hard about the notation and recognising pitch changes or whatever, just acknowledge the 'melody' of the word and try to reproduce it. Pitch influences loudness (= perceived volume) which is what "stress accents" rely on a lot, and "stress accent" languages in turn also employ pitch to varying degrees, so it makes sense you'd parse it as stress.
Now I can differentiate the pitch accents and can tell it just by listening to the words but I can’t seem to tell it by listening to a fast conversation. Is it just normal or do I need to practice more? If I have to practice more, do u have any advice for me to do it effectively?
what's wild is, as I learn, I'm just learning the pitch along with the word (subconsciously). The rules confuse me but I guess if I just pronounce the words correctly with the pitch that I hear it in, it'll be fine. (because I'll have the correct pitch anyway LOL)
