Introduction to Japanese Pitch Accent

In this Japanese pitch accent video, you will learn about the basics of pitch accent in standard Japanese. The Japanese language is known as a pitch accent language in which accent is expressed through a contrasting pitch.

In standard Japanese, there're 4 different pitch accent patterns. Each Japanese word (independent words (Jiritsugo)) has one (or more) of these patterns:

1. Atamadaka (Head-High)
2. Nakadaka (Middle-High)
3. Odaka (Tail-High)
4. Heiban (Flat)

Depending on whether a word has an accent or not, these patterns are categorized into 2 groups:

Downstep:

・Atamadaka (The accent is on the first mora.)
・Nakadaka (The accent is on a mora other than the first and the last moras.)
・Odaka (The accent is on the last mora.)

Flat:

・Heiban (There is no accent.)

In this video, you will learn about these basic Japanese pitch accent rules and practice distinguishing the subtle difference in pitch. Also, there’s a lot of useful information on Japanese pitch accent.



*1: Strictly speaking, the accented mora is pronounced a little louder and the length of the accented and unaccented moras is roughly the same.

*2: When the second mora is ん, the small つ or long vowels, the first and the second moras sound identical in pitch.


0:00 What is Accent?
1:37 What is Pitch Accent?
3:27 Pitch accent notations
4:19 Syllable vs. Mora
4:40 Different pitch accent systems depending on regions
5:18 Pitch accent rules in standard Japanese
6:20 4 different pitch accent patterns
11:19 Listening practice for pitch accent with homophones
12:27 Do you have to memorize the correct pitch accent pattern for every single word?
14:00 Why do you learn pitch accent aside from acquiring correct pronunciation?
16:32 Dictionaries for Japanese pitch accent
18:20 Outro


The Rhythm of the Japanese Language:    • The Rhythm of the Japanese Language -...  

Japanese Long Vowels:    • Japanese Long Vowels - Japanese Pronu...  

Shadowing for Japanese Learners:    • Shadowing for Japanese Learners  

Japanese Pitch Accent:    • Japanese Pitch Accent  

Japanese Pronunciation:    • Japanese Pronunciation  

Wiktionary: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktio...

Online Japanese Accent Dictionary: http://www.gavo.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ojad/...

The Japanese Language Pronunciation and Accent Dictionary (NHK日本語発音アクセント新辞典):

Japan (Paperback) : https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/414011345...

Japan (iPhone app): https://apps.apple.com/jp/app/diction...

The US (Paperback): https://www.amazon.com/dp/4140113456/...

JAccent - Japanese accent dictionary:

(iPhone app): https://apps.apple.com/jp/app/jaccent...

(Android app): https://play.google.com/store/apps/de...

Cambridge Dictionary: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/

Check out my Patreon page:   / campanasdejapanese  



#japaneselanguage #japanesepronunciation #pitchaccent