The Pitch Accent CONTROVERSY in Japanese Learning

Рет қаралды 9,016

Күн бұрын

This is a massive controversial topic now on KZfaq when it comes to language learning and specifically Japanese. Let me bring some clarity.
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A pitch-accent language is a type of language that, when spoken, has certain syllables in words or morphemes that are prominent, as indicated by a distinct contrasting pitch (linguistic tone) rather than by loudness or length, as in some other languages like English. Pitch-accent also contrasts with fully tonal languages like Vietnamese, Thai and Standard Chinese, in which practically every syllable can have an independent tone. Some scholars have claimed that the term "pitch accent" is not coherently defined and that pitch-accent languages are just a sub-category of tonal languages in general.[1]
Languages that have been described as pitch-accent languages include: most dialects of Serbo-Croatian, Slovene, Baltic languages, Ancient Greek, Vedic Sanskrit, Tlingit, Turkish, Japanese, Norwegian, Swedish (but not in Finland), Western Basque,[2] Yaqui,[3] certain dialects of Korean, Shanghainese,[4] and Livonian.
Pitch-accent languages tend to fall into two categories: those with a single pitch-contour (for example, high, or high-low) on the accented syllable, such as Tokyo Japanese, Western Basque, or Persian; and those in which more than one pitch-contour can occur on the accented syllable, such as Punjabi, Swedish, or Serbo-Croatian. In this latter kind, the accented syllable is also often stressed another way.
Some of the languages considered pitch-accent languages, in addition to accented words, also have accentless words (e.g., Japanese and Western Basque); in others all major words are accented (e.g., Blackfoot and Barasana).[5]
The term "pitch accent" is also used to denote a different feature, namely the use of pitch when speaking to give selective prominence (accent) to a syllable or mora within a phrase.[6]
Characteristics of pitch-accent languages
Definitions
Scholars give various definitions of a pitch-accent language. A typical definition is as follows: "Pitch-accent systems [are] systems in which one syllable is more prominent than the other syllables in the same word, a prominence that is achieved by means of pitch" (Zanten and Dol (2010)).[7] That is to say, in a pitch-accent language, in order to indicate how a word is pronounced it is necessary, as with a stress-accent language, to mark only one syllable in a word as accented, not specify the tone of every syllable. This feature of having only one prominent syllable in a word or morpheme is known as culminativity.[8]
Another property suggested for pitch-accent languages to distinguish them from stress languages is that "Pitch accent languages must satisfy the criterion of having invariant tonal contours on accented syllables ... This is not so for pure stress languages, where the tonal contours of stressed syllables can vary freely" (Hayes (1995)).[9] Although this is true of many pitch-accent languages, there are others, such as the Franconian dialects, in which the contours vary, for example between declarative and interrogative sentences.[10]
According to another proposal, pitch-accent languages can only use F0 (i.e., pitch) to mark the accented syllable, whereas stress languages may also use duration and intensity (Beckman).[11] However, other scholars disagree, and find that intensity and duration can also play a part in the accent of pitch-accent languages.[5]
#japanese #pitch #accent

Пікірлер: 243

@jamesbernardi6783 8 ай бұрын

So true about pitch accents. I worked in Japan for seven years. When eating at a Japanese restaurant, and I asked for "hashi", the waiter never brought me a bridge. However, my Noble Metatron, you just gave me a great idea. My Japanese wife's birthday is coming up. After telling her I'll get her some "hana" for her birthday, I think I'll go to the local joke shop pick up a dozen plastic noses! 🤣

@sarahrosen4985 8 ай бұрын

Please share photos of her reaction. 🤭

@andyparal 8 ай бұрын

Is divorce a thing in Japan ? 😅

@MrRabiddogg 8 ай бұрын

it'd be funny if they created a dessert called the Hashi and it was a pastry made in the shape of a bridge just for this.

@sarahrosen4985 8 ай бұрын

@@MrRabiddogg YES!!!

@jamesbernardi6783 8 ай бұрын

I'll even send photos of me from the emergency room! LOL@@sarahrosen4985

@johnlastname8752 8 ай бұрын

As someone how's native language uses pitch accent (Swedish) I completely agree with your point about context. Sure it can sound a little funny if the pitch is wrong, but I'll still understand you.

@VieiraFi 8 ай бұрын

Is it true that the Finnish usually speak swedish without using pitch?

@johnlastname8752 8 ай бұрын

@@VieiraFi the Swedish dialects native to Finland doesn't have pitch accent, yes.

@VieiraFi 8 ай бұрын

@mechupaunhuevon7662 I meant the other way around, but I think I was misremembering what I heard. So it's the swedes who live in Finland who do that, not the Finnish who learn the language as a second language, gotcha

@VieiraFi 8 ай бұрын

@mechupaunhuevon7662 Yeah, I suppose if their mother tongue doesn't have pitch accent (like my mother doesn't for instance) it's harder for them to do it. Have you noticed if swedes or Serbians have an easier time with learning Japanese pitch as compared to Americans, Italians etc who don't have pitch in their languages?

@VieiraFi 8 ай бұрын

@mechupaunhuevon7662 very interesting. Thank you!

@luke211286 8 ай бұрын

As I grew up in Japan, Japanese was my first language. So I speak with a pitch accent (albeit sounding like a gaijin) as it had come naturally. I even didn't know about it until I got interested in languages. In my opinion, one should just mimic what native speakers do rather than studying it in detail. I have once heard an Italian speaking Japanese who is living in Japan for decades. His pronunciation of vowels and consonants are spot on (it always helps that the two languages share a similar sound inventory). However, he does not speak with a pitch accent, he speaks most words with the accent on the penultimate syllable as if it were Italian. So I had to listen very well to even get a grasp of what he's talking about. So yeah, if someone would ask me, pitch accent is important

@FlagAnthem 8 ай бұрын

I addressed this to my guide the exact moment I set foot on Japan. She honestly seemed to not understand what I was asking... 😅 No seriously, Japanese seems to rely way more on context rather than on pitch

@nofosho3567 8 ай бұрын

It’s both. Pitch accent exists but it’s not a necessity. Thank you for the right answer. When I taught preschoolers English in Japan if I was super picky about making sure they pronounced the R’s or L’s perfectly it would have overwhelmed the students. Having a foreign accent isn’t a huge barrier for communication. For me I didn’t worry too much about pitch accent… I attainted moderate fluency and then I moved here and once I heard it year after year you sort of pick it up naturally. It depends on your goal, innit

@metatronacademy 8 ай бұрын

I agree on everything EXCEPT that you pick it up naturally. You don’t. If you think you did you are over estimating yourself. I’m not trying to hate, I say this because that’s what I thought about me and I was wrong. I needed to study it. No one can pick it up naturally except a native.

@VieiraFi 8 ай бұрын

@@metatronacademy Would you naturally pick up tones if you lived in China?

@nofosho3567 8 ай бұрын

@@metatronacademy I’m not saying it comes naturally but you can hear the different in pitch easily. Maybe if you don’t know pitch accent exists at all you wouldn’t but if you know that the difference is there for a reason I think it’s not unreasonably difficult. Also I’ve been here for 18 years and knew of pitch accent from the start so maybe my unconscious bias is kicking in… I’ve never studied it extensively but I don’t think it’s impossible to hear the difference unless you’ve studied the crap out of it.

@metatronacademy 8 ай бұрын

@@VieiraFi without any training I doubt it. With good training I’d say mostly yes in the case or Mandarin, but it needs to be high level training. There really is a difference between how tones work and how pitch works. I personally found the tones in Mandarin easier than the pitch in Japanese. Cantonese would be a whole different level of discussion.

@metatronacademy 8 ай бұрын

@@nofosho3567 Oh I agree you can surely hear the differences, I just don’t think you can pick it up and replicate it by ear. The reason is because you will naturally develop the incorrect structures or pattern and you will start to apply the wrong pitch patters to the wrong words because they sound similar or have a similar number of mora. It’s impossible to avoid.

@ticallionz 8 ай бұрын

I minored in Japanese in the early 90's - 6 semesters with all native teachers. The weird thing is that none of them even mentioned pitch accent - I only found out about it several years after I graduated. I had a vague sense while learning it that there was a sort of melody to the endings, which I tried to emulate, but I had no idea it was standardized. I think maybe the reasoning was that it might overwhelm foreign learners who already had to deal with kana, kanji, the grammar, etc. and also maybe because it varies based on different dialects

@southcoastinventors6583 8 ай бұрын

That because they are happy to have people generally wanting to learn the language this pitch accent nonsense is really like well I can speak/read/write at a college level now how can I can I get hired at NHK

@metatronacademy 8 ай бұрын

Same for me. I wish they did tell me to be honest. Luckly I found out in Japan.

@coolbrotherf127 8 ай бұрын

For 1 it isn't really "standardized". The pitch accent people learn is based on the Tokyo accent, but like any accent, every other place in Japan has a slightly different one. The only "correct" accent is one that people can understand and most learners who engage with native speakers or at least native level material will pick up the accent naturally. I've rarely met anyone who just has a completely awful pitch accent even among people who don't study it directly. Plus, it's kind of expected that foreigners will have foreign accents in any language.

@Akaykimuy 8 ай бұрын

I majored in japanese a few years ago and we were taught pitch accent by one of the native teachers on the first week

@shinobi-no-bueno 8 ай бұрын

@@coolbrotherf127it's like saying if you don't speak RP then you don't speak English correctly

@daik901 8 ай бұрын

Yes, as a Japanese guy I can understand 100％ with wrong pitch accent. But if you speak with perfect pitch accent I would say "wow your Japanese is really good!"

@junfour 3 ай бұрын

つまり、いつも通り「日本語上手ですね」って言われます。もう嘘かどうか計れないからあんまり変わらないでしょｗ

@Akaykimuy 8 ай бұрын

I majored in Japanese at Ca'Foscari a few years ago, we were taught pitch accent by one of the native professors on the first week. But we were rarely corrected on our pronunciation, even things like dropping the H, so many of the students still had heavy italian accents by year 3. I think at least being aware of pitch accent is important at a beginner level, so an individual student can choose whether of not they want to put time in to learn it. When I learn a language, I want to pronounce words as close as possible to a native speaker. So naturally I also study pitch accent in Japanese

@tsandman 8 ай бұрын

Just teaching that "it exists, but you'll still be understood" should be enough for them to pay attention to it when they're ready to go there (if they want). That should be the bare minimum. Learning about the basic rules should be done, but not putting too much emphasis on it unless the student is ready for it.

@FlagAnthem 7 ай бұрын

The impression I had was that some skills might be asked only if you wanted to be a TV speaker or be in business.

@insanitypepper1740 8 ай бұрын

Thank you! I am 5 months into learning Japanese. I don't mind sounding foreign. It will be pretty obvious to a Japanese person anyway when I have the vocabulary of a toddler.

@Jay_in_Japan 8 ай бұрын

And probably because you look foreign. That'll give it away before anything else

@FlagAnthem 7 ай бұрын

As my teacher said: being understood is what really matters

@luckyels3034 8 ай бұрын

PITCH ACCENT is the answer.

@santiagodelpilar6701 8 ай бұрын

As The Holy NHK intended Ămēn

@Kenruli 8 ай бұрын

As a finnish person I can say that finnish language has many words that have different meanings but hardly ever there has been a missunderstanding. Here's a small example word "Kuusi" it can mean many things such as number six, it can mean a fir tree. Or a word "maa" it can mean many things such as Soil, land, country, earth, or ground.

@biohazardx07 8 ай бұрын

I am so glad youtube recommended me your content, thankyou very much for your amazing job dear Metatron Sensei.

@nazarnovitsky9868 8 ай бұрын

Thank You very much for this video ! 😊

@MarkRosa 7 ай бұрын

I studied Japanese in college and was taught not to focus on pitch accent at that stage, and to wait until you go to Japan and then pick up the local pitch accent by listening to people around you, rather than learning the Tokyo-based pitch accent and having to possibly adjust to something very different when you get to Japan. Doing it this way and then going to Kansai enabled me to pick up that pitch accent without any interference from the often-opposite Tokyo one. I say let your Japanese community be your guide and learn to speak like the people around you do. Obviously you aren't going to want to overdo local dialect words, which will sound strange from a non-native if you overdo it, but pitch accent is something I was happy to pick up from the locals.

@gabriellawrence6598 8 ай бұрын

Thanks for approaching this topic, I was thinking about asking you about this. Recently I've been meaning to return to Japanese study. Please do some vids on pitch accent.

@JaredaSohn 8 ай бұрын

That's great to know! I do believe you've touched upon pitch accent previously, but I'm glad for an indepth answer.

@ShikiByakko 8 ай бұрын

Fluent speaker here. I used to kind of care about the pitch, until I started to live with my partner. He is an awa-ben speaker, and I have been so affected by that accent in an unconscious way that people have started to told me I sound weird ever since. My Japanese is now a mix of standard Japanese with Awa-ben, so now I don't care at all.

@BrunoZerone 7 ай бұрын

One of the things I really like in your approach is the practicality of considering different students' profiles. I used to study Japanese when I came across pitch accent through Dogen videos, which made me freeze 'cause I had this perfect pronunciation obsession. It took me a couple of years to get back to it.

@Fred_Lougee 8 ай бұрын

On a related matter, do you think that fluency in Italian is reliant upon the student learning all of the correct accompanying hand gestures?

@FlagAnthem 7 ай бұрын

Only if you get the appropriate context to not end ridiculed or stabbed or shot at

@ctam79 8 ай бұрын

Context is the basis of every dad joke ever made.

@coolbrotherf127 8 ай бұрын

The pitch accent people learn is based on the Tokyo accent, but like any accent, every other place in Japan has a slightly different one. The only "correct" accent is one that people can understand and most learners who engage with native speakers or at least native level material will pick up a more natural accent over time. I've rarely met anyone who just has a completely awful pitch accent even among people who don't study it directly. Plus, it's kind of expected that foreigners will have foreign accents in any language. Pretty much every European English speaker has "foreign" accent to me lol. I definitely feel like for anyone who has the goal to become fluent in speaking Japanese, they should at least study for basics and be aware that it exists and how to identify it. That'll go a long way in keeping them from sound very strange when speaking with an actual Japanese person.

@granist 8 ай бұрын

Hello there my good sir, as someone that has been learning Russian for 2 years. I know that there's no pitch accent in the language, I do know what it's like to learn a language completely opposite of your native language. I admire your videos, you are a wonderful person, thank you.

@juandiegovalverde1982 8 ай бұрын

In an anime I was watching (Elfen Lied) there´s a character who is called Tanikaze Nagate. The surname is always pronounced taníkaze, but the name sometimes is pronounced nagáte (most of the time) and sometimes nágate.

@yorgunsamuray 7 ай бұрын

My language also is a language with a pitch accent and I had native Japanese teachers when learning so, this might have helped. I also remember that we were taught about the different pronunciations of はな as “flower” and “nose”. I kinda think that maybe the pitch accent during the homonyms situations could be taught. Even if it’s understandable from the context it helps to speak properly.

@daltonsherrod1573 8 ай бұрын

Can we get a video on the ancient greeks pitch accent? It’s SO interesting! Great video as always!

@Mortablunt 8 ай бұрын

What about their catching accent?

@daltonsherrod1573 8 ай бұрын

@@Mortablunt what?

@MooImABunny 8 ай бұрын

wait what? can pitch accent be reconstructed to any level of precision? or do we have records telling us exactly how it was done I'm asking because even at a single time different regions in Japan use different pitch accents, that indicates it varies even faster than vowels, so reconstruction must be terrible

@daltonsherrod1573 8 ай бұрын

@@MooImABunny well we have a general idea of the general flow of the pitch accent in 5th century Attic Greek. We don’t exactly know what the exact difference in pitch between a raised vowel would be over a non raised, but we do know, for example, which vowel would be raised.

@Twisted_Logic 8 ай бұрын

I'm not currently learning Japanese, but were I to start I'd definitely want to learn pitch accent. I'd feel self conscious potentially putting the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLABle

@southcoastinventors6583 8 ай бұрын

Waste of time until you are able to hold a real conversation and even then its highly questionable

@Akaykimuy 8 ай бұрын

@@southcoastinventors6583 let people study however they want in their own time if they like studying pitch accent then it's not a waste of time

@southcoastinventors6583 8 ай бұрын

@@Akaykimuy but it is when you start out since as Metatron mention another layer of unnecessary level of complication when the most important think is to learn kana well. Simple to complex just like anything learned

@xjmmjbnqfstjdijoj2044 8 ай бұрын

Here are some examples of pitch accent-related videos Most teachers don't venture explaining or even mentioning it since it's all over the place and much more complicated than tones in Chinese for instance because pitch accent not only depends on a single word itself but also on other factors such as particles following the word, the conjugation of a verb, word combinations, it can depend on the role of the word (is it used as a noun or as an adverb, etc.), And it is highly irregular, like reaaaally irregular kzfaq.info/get/bejne/iZySeNSh1M3FYoE.htmlsi=71DF0WTXNXtev696 kzfaq.info/get/bejne/o8l9msSAls_Sfpc.htmlsi=1xuvUe1B5L3s7yHk kzfaq.info/get/bejne/oMmeZcahq8reqmg.htmlsi=TeAFrxCJSPfRX5Dm kzfaq.info/get/bejne/oc6af6mYs7PMZIE.htmlsi=DP72Qd5LFe4M-s7c

@xjmmjbnqfstjdijoj2044 8 ай бұрын

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/oZeUn8d007-zdIE.htmlsi=xxT4dcjcq9qQEyhE kzfaq.info/get/bejne/etKfZc-pkq2qdYU.htmlsi=AxlnGD_F-f_RhkGf kzfaq.info/get/bejne/fNp4dtyKmp2lj3k.htmlsi=xzBYhGX-YLVIeGDP kzfaq.info/get/bejne/q7Cma7OAs86Xo4E.htmlsi=Qr6R_6qxa0C87ZzU kzfaq.info/get/bejne/eZyUgtVmu6zUY2Q.htmlsi=BC45CXPmi8elRFJw kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ptSiZdqbl92mmYE.htmlsi=9gebjQI_hUyWG641 kzfaq.info/get/bejne/r72okreKrq7RmJc.htmlsi=onaV3gWfAl2JBXEg kzfaq.info/get/bejne/jqmklb2Eld7QYKc.htmlsi=DfairuNnVaEHwlsB kzfaq.info/get/bejne/q5pzht2iv5ndeps.htmlsi=rSywfzkEopS4xxf5 kzfaq.info/get/bejne/e8iElq97tZ63dKs.htmlsi=jHTOi4t2WvzH3S5N kzfaq.info/get/bejne/g9eqYKxly8W8dn0.htmlsi=BWf5IwWpajyLQkvZ

@noelthorley3248 8 ай бұрын

Context? Well! Captain Context aka Matt Eastern, will be happy to hear that!

@Unpainted_Huffhines 8 ай бұрын

I think Metatron's stance on modern wokeness in culture might rub Matt Easton the wrong way.

@handybanana2274 8 ай бұрын

As an English native I must say, very nice aspiration on your english consonants for an italian, also th sounds.

@mavsworld1733 7 ай бұрын

When native speakers try and understand what you are saying, they do not listen to every word, their brain cross checks what you say with their experiences throughout life (this is why we are able to understand people talking in places like clubs, despite other loud noises blocking words). If you do not have reasonable pitch accent, correct rhythm, etc, then the Japanese native speaker will be very confused. I live in Japan and work a job where I speak Japanese pretty much exclusively to older Japanese people and this was my lived experience. Even when I said grammatically correct things, if it was not the usual way Japanese people would say it, Japanese people would be baffled by what. Lots of people compare English to Japanese, but English native speakers are used to a far larger variety of pronunciation and sentences than Japanese native speakers.

@MetalforOden 8 ай бұрын

Yeah while in university they never taught us pitch. we might have briefly talked about it but they always reiterated that Japanese is highly contextual.

@marcaustin 8 ай бұрын

I wish i was half as smart as this man. Remarkable

@BrandonGalaxy7 8 ай бұрын

As someone studying Japanese and planning to live for some time in Nagasaki, hearing that they have a different pitch accent is news to me! I have been doing my best to have the Tokyo pitch accent but now I'm a bit interested in how they speak in Nagasaki, thank you for bringing this to my attention!

@FlagAnthem 7 ай бұрын

I mean there are lots of jokes about tokyo and kansai speakers not getting each other

@amyohta1675 3 ай бұрын

Nagasaki will be different, but easy for anyone in the country to understand. Enjoy, and let Nagasaki language become your language. It's a beautiful thing!

@mr.flibblessumeriantransla5417 8 ай бұрын

It seems like matching stress placement with high vs low pitch would be a good segue into describing the manner in which pitch accents operate. The example you gave of “háshi” vs “hashí” sounded very similar to stress placement systems in languages which rely on stress to distinguish potential homophones. The two operate in a similar manner (if the pitch accent only distinguishes two pitches). I think this would be a useful corollary for introducing the concept. It also seems [to me] that one of the barriers for English speakers is our tendency to reduce the vowels of unstressed syllables towards a schwa. Once the speaker unlearns this habit, the effect of stress placement becomes much more similar in application to that of pitch accents. (Obviously the ore is still a difference; I was merely saying it can be a helpful way conceptulizing the process for a non-native speaker) English verbs, for instance, exhibit this distinction from corresponding homophonic nouns or adjectives: “condúct” (verb) vs “cónduct” (noun) “convérse” (verb) vs “cónverse” (adjective) “refúse” (verb) vs “réfuse” (noun) ~(plus dialectal alteration between voicing on final [s]) In fact, there is even a tendency for English speakers to unconciously alter their pitch in such settings. Anyway, this was a very interesting video. Much love from America!

@kekeke8988 8 ай бұрын

Those aren't even homophones in English. For example, here's the IPA for refuse rɪfyuz (verb) vs refuse rɛfyus(noun).

@mr.flibblessumeriantransla5417 8 ай бұрын

Sorry, I misspoke. I meant homographs.

@eeminieminen6657 8 ай бұрын

I spent years studying japanese when I was at the university. I absolutely loved the language, but eventually got frustrated with it exactly because of the pitch accent, and I think it was the main reason I stopped studying the language. Back then I couldn't find resources to learn it, nor had I even the proficiency to hear or reproduce the pitches correctly. They're much more subtle and also difficult to predict than in Swedish that I also used to study.

@pierpi6715 8 ай бұрын

I was about to say that you may talk too much, but... excellent explanation! Thanks

@keithmofley8275 18 күн бұрын

I've been practicing daily for around a year now and I can say that delving to deeply in the pitch accent definitely inhibited my progress in learning the language. I think it was good to know but so far it has been far less important towards learning fluency. I feel like it'll be something I go back too when I can actually have conversations and start to learn which accents best match my personality.

@-Higashi- 8 ай бұрын

When’s the Japanese language tips series ??

@Epsilonsama 8 ай бұрын

As someone who is not trained in Japanese the pitch accent seem to be like any other accent. There's a certain accent that's considered standard Japanese like in let say General American English but just like in American English depending on the region the accent might change. For people who come to English from a foreign language one can still speak fluently in English yet still carry the accent of your mother tongue. My mother tongue is Spanish and in Spanish we diferentiate words based on accentuation of syllables which is where the á on words come from. They are there to mark where the stress of a syllable and words do change depending on where you put the accent with pronunciation rules explaining how a word it said in case of no accent. It's a concept that's hard for me to explain in English but it's a REALLY important part of Spanish and if you don't master that you will sound foreign.

@khelian613 8 ай бұрын

Japanese already being a very context-dependent language, it's no surprise that they can adapt to a slightly faulty pronunciation... And that's not like homophones don't exist in english. Do you often confuse eight and ate in a sentence? In french we have lots of perfectly identical homophones, no difference in stress or pitch at all, like sein - ceint - saint - sain - seing (breast - encircled - holy - healthy - signature) - yet apart from occasional puns, they won't be confused because there's always context around them: "Elle a de beaux seins" (She has beautiful breasts) ; "Le château est ceint d'une muraille" (The castle is encircled by a wall) ; "C'est un lieu saint" (It is a holy place) ; "Je prends des repas sains" (I take healthy meals) ; "Il a mis son seing sur la page" (He put his signature on the page) for example.

@khelian613 8 ай бұрын

@@Random98-ij8li Always the best

@matteokunimitsu 8 ай бұрын

I've studied Japanese since 2017. I would say i'm quite fluent. I've got a high score on n1, BJT, do business in japanese and live here with a japanese wife etc. I've personally never studied beyond the basics of pitch accent, and I've also never had an issue with people misunderstanding me. In terms of accent I get told that I have quite a good accent and it's not like other native english speakers, maybe because i spoke italian growing up (still studying now, not super fluent). In terms of being misunderstood I've had moments where it was on 同音異義語 (homophone) that are all 平板 (not having a specific pitch accent). for example, I almost started an argument with my wife by saying the word 矯正 (correction, of a flaw etc) but she had interpreted it as 強制 (compulsion,coercion). they are both pronounced the same way 'kyousei' Just my little anecdote

@victoraguirre5545 8 ай бұрын

I think this is one of those "high context" vs "low context" cultures (and hence, languages) things. As Romance speakers we're somewhat used to a certain high level context, as does Japanese, so we we can understand the relative weight of a minor gramatical feature ("play it down" a little, if you want). But Germanic languages (and hence, most of native English speakers) tend to work on a low-context basis, so is easy for them to give pitch-accent the same importance other features have on-system, as for them if it exists it should be for something it adds to the communication.

@nootics 8 ай бұрын

Yet, swedish has pitch accent and some people in the comment section are mentioning that the situation is the same as with japanese

@victoraguirre5545 8 ай бұрын

@@nootics Have you studied either?

@arrowackskorsou8194 8 ай бұрын

LOL you said Nagasachi instead of Nangasachi! 😉

@Hwelhos 8 ай бұрын

In my opinion, it is similar to latin length distinction. So, while not necessary for reading or speaking per se. It is necessary to sound native

@user-vr1mp2ef7d 8 ай бұрын

Interesting!

@tohaason 8 ай бұрын

Context fixes a lot of things.. on the other hand, my wife (Japanese) and some others have started claiming that my Japanese pronunciation (I'm not fluent) is vastly better than before. In fact my pronunciation is just as it was in the past, the only difference is that I have become more conscious about pitch. But to those mentioned it feels like my pronunciation of the language has improved. Another data point is my own native language.. it's not as pitch-based as Japanese, though it does exist to separate certain words (with sometimes three different pitches, sometimes four, for a few specific words), but what we do have is intonation. And when I have problems immediately getting what foreigners are saying in my native language it's always caused by incorrect intonation (if the sentence is otherwise correct). I'm actually shocked by how often this happens, as I have interacted with non-native speakers for decades. But even for simple sentences I'm sometimes thrown off just because the intonation is wrong. My internal "filter" isn't triggered correctly and I don't get it, in real-time at least (I have tons of "filters" to slot in to decode the very many dialects of my language, and to decode other languages - first I hear gibberish, then the filter slots in and it gets clear - incorrect intonation sometimes make me stumble. On the other hand "incorrectly" pronounced "r"'s etc don't matter much).

@unarealtaragionevole 8 ай бұрын

The judgment for lack of perfect pronunciation is the result of an unrealistic purism created by the 'I'm better than you' types. I'm an Italian speaker with a French wife; and they are constantly on me about my 'horrible" French pronunciation. They correct my sounds constantly and I get so annoyed cause they obviously know what I said or meant. It's not like they don't understand, they do. They're just French ;o) If you don't say it they way they think you should, you're wrong.

@OsakaJoe01 8 ай бұрын

THANK YOU. I've been living in Japan for about 16 years and no restaurant server has ever brought me a bridge when I asked for chopsticks THANK HEAVENS. Something that bothers me is how people are trying to make an entire science of pitch accent when even the Japanese themselves don't. In Spanish, as you know I'm sure, Metatron, accents are an exact science, the Spanish going as far has marking accents with a tilde. En italiano se hace lo mismo, ¿no es así? I spoke Spanish, then English, then Japanese, and in my opinion, pitch accent, is not really that different than accents in Spanish or stress accent in English. If you're already used to working with accents, then perceiving and producing Japanese pitch accent shouldn't be a problem. English has stress, and I argue, it's own pitch accent. But neither is formally taught in schools. At least in my experience, no one told me there was a high-low pattern for "dessert" and a rising intonation for "desert." I just learned to say these words differently because they're two different words and people will get a chuckle if you use the wrong one. Still, I don't think there will ever be a misunderstanding at a restaurant where a waiter will bring a foreign customer some sand because they ordered a "desert." People will understand. English has its own pitches. You sound "off" if your pitches/intonation aren't that of a native speaker. And yet, I don't know if someone has sat down to create an exact science of this yet. LIGHT your cigarette. Light YOUR cigarette. Light your CIGARETTE. This is the same sentence and yet, it means something different depending on what word we choose to accent. I'm sure you can already hear that the pitch pattern is different in each one. High-low-low, low-high-low, low-low-high respectively. An English teacher is not going to go this into detail with any of their students. Unless they're a a person training say an actor or something for a film and the actor is trying to sound native. And that's just it, isn't it! The only people that are bothered with this are those who are trying to pass as natives. As if pitch accent were the only aspect that would give you away as a foreigner. I hate to have to say it, but unless you look anything other than Japanese that's just never going to happen. Over the phone, maybe. And then maybe not even then. You can have impeccable pitch accent, but it will do you no good if your ら row is off. Pronunciation of doubled consonants. (Little っ; both of these Italians have an advantage.) Perception and pronunciation of long and short vowels. Or how about ん? つ? These are all sounds notoriously difficult for foreigners to make. And we're not even at grammar. Can you use は and が correctly? Can you address yourself and others in 敬語 correctly? Do you how to use 自動詞 and他動詞 correctly? So called "passive voice?" "Adverse passive" etc.? These are all aspects of Japanese that will give you away as a foreigner no matter how good your 高低アクセント is. Anyway, grazie 🤌 for this video. There are some people who really need to hear it.

@kekeke8988 8 ай бұрын

"LIGHT your cigarette. Light YOUR cigarette. Light your CIGARETTE. " All three mean the same thing. Only the context of the answer is different. 1. Maybe you were doing something different with your cigarette. 2. Maybe you were trying to light someone else's cigarette. 3. Maybe be you were lighting your cigar or something instead of your cigarette.

@pkbelly 8 ай бұрын

The question is, can I still become 上手 without learning pitch accent?

@weeklyfascination 2 күн бұрын

Yes, context is incredibly important. I've never asked for お箸一膳 at Lawson and got a bridge. But when I say レジ袋入らないです with the wrong pitch, the cashier will sometimes reply はい２枚.I've been told that some people listen to the pitch accent and not the actual words. Combined with the fact that many people see a foreigner and think they hear English, even when you're speaking Japanese, IMO it's better to learn proper pitch accent. TLDR: I don't see a downside to learning pitch accent.

@pierreabbat6157 8 ай бұрын

Tonari no kyaku wa yoku kaki ku kyaku da. The neighbor's guest is a guest who eats a lot of [persimmons|oysters]. "Kaki" has different meanings depending on the accent, and both can be eaten. I've been in Portugal and Brazil; in one place they call it "dióspiro", and in the other they call it "caqui". Put them together and you get Diospyros kaki, which is the scientific name.

@xjmmjbnqfstjdijoj2044 8 ай бұрын

In this case You could either say toNARI NO KYAKU WA YOku kaKI KUu kyaKU DA と／なりのきゃくはよ＼くか／きく＼うき／ゃくだ隣の客はよく柿食う客だ The neighbor's guest eats a lot of persimmons Or toNARI NO KYAKU WA YOku KAki KUu kyaKU DA と／なりのきゃくはよ＼く／か＼き／く＼うき／ゃくだ隣の客はよく牡蠣食う客だ The neighbor's guest eats a lot of oysters Or Even toNARI NO KYAKU WA YOku kaKI/KAki KUu kyaku da (ending with a final low pitch, but it wouldn't change the meaning in both cases)

@kekeke8988 8 ай бұрын

How does pitch accent work in conjunction with vowel devoicement? Like, how can you tell the pitch of a devoiced vowel? It doesn't even make sense to me.

@heterodoxagnostic8070 4 ай бұрын

the link to dogen's patreon is missing

@cnervip 7 ай бұрын

those pitch differences sound for me like stress syllables in spanish

@lellab.8179 8 ай бұрын

I have never studied Japanese. I know what tones in Chinese are and I have no confusion about that, but I really stuggle to understand how is a pitch different from a stress/tonic accent. 🤔

@NaishoTheNeko 8 ай бұрын

The honest answer is that it is a bit pedantic. But the main point about it is that each word has a "normal" pitch tone. Think of it like how you spell a word. The pitch tone is like a verbal spelling of it. But unlike spelling, the pitch tone doesn't contain a lot of information in that if you get it wrong it doesn't garble the meaning. Each word has this pitch spelling marker and most common words you will naturally pick it up as you will hear them often enough. But just because one word has one pitch tone spelling doesn't automatically mean similar looking words will have the exact same pitch spelling. That is why it is a bit pedantic. Because it is a forest for the trees moment.

@xjmmjbnqfstjdijoj2044 8 ай бұрын

@kekeke8988 8 ай бұрын

With Japanese pitch accent (actually strictly speaking Tokyo pitch accent, others may be different), the tone of each syllable doesn't matter. Only the location of the accent matters. The accent is marked by a drop from high to low pitch (usually called a 'downstep'). HL > first syllable is accented LH(L) second syllable is accented. LH(H) no syllable is accented. Those are the only possibilities. In Mandarin both syllables could have one of 4 tones for 16 possibilities.

@Unpainted_Huffhines 8 ай бұрын

If I had to guess, if one word has two different meanings depending on which pitch you use, then it matters and you should learn it.

@AthanasiosJapan 8 ай бұрын

To be honest I don't care too much about pitch accent. I remember only one case that pitch accent was needed in JLPT. It was in a listening question, in order to distinguish between 隔週 and 各週. To make things more complicated, pitch accent is different between regional dialects of Japan. A Japanese once told me that I sounded like a native speaker, but with a strange regional accent. For those who want to master the pitch accent and other peculiarities of (standard) Japanese pronunciation, there is the NHK's 日本語アクセント辞典.

@meanimeconingles 8 ай бұрын

Me encanta

@Rairosu 19 күн бұрын

I want to study pitch accent mainly because it sound beautiful this way. I am studying it as a Beginner. I also kind of mess with the sounds in my head internally as I process it.

@ASMRDoodlez 8 ай бұрын

To me, it's something you'd want to know exists pretty early on, but it would be the last thing you need to learn about a word or phrase.

@narsplace 8 ай бұрын

That is ture that a prefect pitch would give a better account yet from my experience most Japanese don't like when a foreigners has a prefect accent as it gets rid off that cuteness for them.

@amyohta1675 3 ай бұрын

As a fellow linguist and Japanese professor, I do not prioritize so-called "standard" Japanese pitch over 共通語 (kyootsuugo--"the common language") which has regional pitch differences. Just as "standard" Tokyo pitch is not enforced on Japanese children throughout Japan when they are educated, though they do learn standard grammar, it doesn't make sense to me that non-native speakers should have to sound like Tokyoites. I am glad that my Japanese reflects my history in Japan, which was mostly in Kyushu (Miyazaki prefecture), where I learned to speak 共通語 (kyootsuugo "the common language) and local language used in the city where I lived. And, when I moved to Tokyo, no one batted an eyelash about my Miyazaki pitch, which then, over time, blended to a hybrid of Tokyo and Miyazaki pitch. I think it is beautiful that our accents in native and learned languages reflect our lived histories. Our language embodies who we spend time with, where we live, etc. In Japan people often ask me if I grew up there, so I know my Japanese sounds natural, but nobody thinks I'm from Tokyo. And, I have no desire to sound like a Tokyo native. As a linguist, I value all language varieties. And, in hiring Japanese professors at my university, I am glad to say that we do not discriminate based on their Japanese pitch accents. We have professors from different parts of Japan who have different accents--some who use Tokyo pitch and some who do not, depending on where they are from, and from different parts of the US who have different histories in Japan, with their own various ways of using pitch in Japanese that blend beautifully with their own different accents carried along with them from their different Englishes. I love this richness. :)

@NaishoTheNeko 8 ай бұрын

I often take the position that accents are the spice of life. If everybody sounded the same it would be boring. I can, for example, tell that the Metaron is not a native English speaker. Is that a problem? No, because native speakers in the US have a hard enough time saying my native state of Oregon correctly.

@gj1234567899999 8 ай бұрын

Let me see if this analogy works - does English also have a “pitch accent”? Without pitch accent we can be understood, but it may sound weird and difficult to understand for a native speaker and sound like those aliens in the movie “galaxy quest”

@amyohta1675 3 ай бұрын

English has word stress, and different Englishes can vary in word stress. In American English we say VEGetable. In Indian English (oh, I hope I remember this correctly) I think they say vegeTAble. We understand each other just fine.

@SkymarshalAnoke 8 ай бұрын

In german we say 'umfahren", what means "to drive over something or somebody". And then there is "umfahren" what means "to drive around something or somebody" 😂

@arlind9999 8 ай бұрын

But isn’t there a little delay in the understanding from a native speaker if you speak to them without the pitch accent. I can only imagine that every native speaker is used to a certain rhythm in their language and if someone speaks off-rhythm it is still a bit harder to understand sometimes.

@amyohta1675 3 ай бұрын

Pitch accents don't relate much to intelligibility. Intelligibility is more related to speaking grammatically and to the rhythm of speech, which in Japanese is syllable (mora)-timing.

@pacmonster066 8 ай бұрын

I would imagine the reason why some Japanese language educators would say the pitch accent is important is because why teach incorrect syntax if you don't have to. Even if the context around the words would make it clear to a native speaker what is meant, you still wouldn't want to speak in constant unforced errors. It highlights to the native speaker that you are just learning the language and it'd be better to not communicate important things in a language both sides aren't fully fluent in. It's like reading broken English. Most English speakers can generally understand what is meant by the context, but it's just unneeded brain energy to spend if it can be said correctly to start with.

@NaishoTheNeko 8 ай бұрын

It is less than that. This isn't akin to broken English. It is more like some guy speaking to you in an accent. That is all it is. Of course there will always be people who want others to speak like them. In Japan my Pacific Northwest accent is considered to be among the best and easiest to learn. It is easier for them to differentiate between the sounds. Does that mean my accent is the single best one? Nope, but it is the one that they want to emulate.

@pacmonster066 8 ай бұрын

@@NaishoTheNeko An accent doesn't change the meaning of words. Without the pitch some words would be the wrong ones. Which is the comparison to broken English. As I said, that wrongness doesn't make it less understandable with the appropriate context, but at the same time it still takes some amount of thought on the person listening to replace the incorrect word for the correct one and anybody would prefer not to do that if they didn't have to.

@NaishoTheNeko 8 ай бұрын

@@pacmonster066 It still isn't like broken English. Your example is far too strong. There are even places in Japan with no pitch accent! All people are arguing over is whether the Tokyo pitch accent is worth studying.

@kekeke8988 8 ай бұрын

@@pacmonster066 An accent changes the meaning of words. That's the point of it.

@pacmonster066 8 ай бұрын

@@kekeke8988 I think you're confusing what a dialect is from an accent. Your accent is *how* you say words. The pronunciation of the words. It doesn't change the meaning of those words. An Australian, Irish, English, and somebody from Texas all will have different accents but the words they're saying all mean the same thing. And while it's called the pitch "accent" really it's just the way those words are meant to be said aloud. Different areas of Japan have different regional dialects or accents but they all do the pitch as it's how the language grammar works.

@ZombieLicorice 8 ай бұрын

In English there are so many homophones that it's surprising that any English speakers would doubt the ability of context to do the work. We even have jokes that point out the silliness of it. What do you get when you drop a piano on a military base? A flat major

@Jay_in_Japan 8 ай бұрын

If your goal is to fool someone over the phone that you're native Japanese, learn pitch-accent. Sure, there are different systems of pitch-accent, but if you're inconsistent and mix them together, you're immediately tagged as foreign-sounding. Otherwise though, don't worry about it. You'll be understood. (But sound foreign).

@amyohta1675 3 ай бұрын

On the phone people think I am Japanese, but they never think I am from Tokyo. Not learning Tokyo pitch is not a bit of a problem. :) I would guess that most people in Japan don't speak with Tokyo pitch, since only 10% of the people in Japan live there.

@Muck-qy2oo 8 ай бұрын

What about pitch accent in Latinum?

@metatronacademy 8 ай бұрын

No pitch accent in Classical Latin, if that’s what you are asking.

@Muck-qy2oo 7 ай бұрын

@@metatronacademy How do we know? Why is there still a controversy around latin had a pitch or a stress accent.

@FeralMina 8 ай бұрын

A word like “spirits” is not a great example, because all usages have the same pronunciation. With two words with the same pronunciation but different meaning, like spirits, yes it’s effortless to understand which is meant based on context. But as for the same word with different meanings AND different pronunciations, it breaks my brain for a second when they’re confused. Like, take the two pronunciations of content (i.e. CONtent, like subject matter, or conTENT, like a satisfied feeling). If someone said to me “I’m feeling CONtent” it’d take me a minute to understand, even though English is my first language. Likewise, if someone said “I don’t like that kind of conTENT”, I’d be mighty confused for a minute until my brain puzzled out the speaker’s intention. So, I’m thinking “spirits” is a very inaccurate analogy. In English, stress is very important. Yes, perhaps someone with incorrect stresses could be understood by a English first language speaker, but it takes real effort. Similarly, my second language is a pitched language and it’s a real strain to understand what people are saying if the pitch is off. Sure, it can be done, because context and logic… but it’s makes listening noticeably harder than need be.

@metatronacademy 8 ай бұрын

Sure but foreigners ALWAYS mess up words like content or console or combat and the like and it never gives any problem whatsoever in conversation. Think of a French accent speaking English for instance. Literally every syllable receives the wrong stress. Or an Italian stressing the wrong syllables. Still not a problem. It’s just an accent we accept. Yet in Japanese some people think it’s not acceptable to have an accent which is weird. It’s fine to have an accent, just like it’s fine to strive to lose as much as possible of that accent if that’s what you like. It’s a case by case

@FeralMina 8 ай бұрын

@@metatronacademy I didn’t express an opinion on whether learners should try to learn good pitch. I just said that your analogy wasn’t entirely accurate. But if you’d like to know my opinion… In your response, I really like the way you’re accepting differences and leaving room for individual perspectives. I hope you’ll consider this perspective. I believe that, for me, learning the language as closely as possible to how it was meant to be spoken is the most respectful way to engage with another culture. Unless we are already a part of said culture, I feel that language doesn’t belong to us no matter how well we learn it. To my mind, we are a guest in that language, and the right thing for guests to do is learn what constitutes good manners and then apply them. After all, what I (as an outsider) think is honoring a language might not actually be what that culture thinks is honoring that language, eh? So I try to abide by their customs as a matter of respect. Their house rules when I’m in their house, so to speak. But ya know what else? My opinion, as an outsider, doesn’t count for anything. 😂 I think the only people who should get any say in how a language is learned are the people whose culture that language comes from. Full stop. This is especially important with cultural and racial minorities, I feel. I’m seeing it as a matter of cultural sensitivity and respect. It seems to me that oftentimes North American and European people have a way of thinking they can take something (like a language) from another culture and do whatever they want with what they’ve taken as if it belongs to them, instead of honoring the language and its speakers by learning it according to the customs of the culture it originally came from. Quite a sense of entitlement, sometimes. For me, I think if an outside culture, especially one that might have a history of colonization and/or cultural appropriation, wants to take something from a culture, especially a minority culture or historically persecuted culture, they should be very careful to do so in the way that is defined by and controlled by that culture. So, in the case of the Japanese language… How do Japanese people want non-Japanese people to approach learning their language in the most respectful way possible? I obvs can’t answer that. But that’s my perspective in a nutshell. Thanks for considering my viewpoint.

@metatronacademy 8 ай бұрын

@@FeralMina Believe it or not I agree with you when it comes to my personal approach to learning foreign languages. I always strive to do my very best, as a form of respect, to speak the language as close to a native as possible, even though that's a very challenging goal and I often fail. With that being said, I don't think every person has to necessarily do that. Only if you wish to also because let's be honest, not everyone can even hear tones or pitches. The second part I strongly disagree with. When you say: "I think the only people who should get any say in how a language is learned are the people whose culture that language comes from. Full stop." That's profoundly wrong, BUT I might be misunderstanding what you actually mean. Let me elaborate. People who speak a language natively do not know how that language is learnt as a second language. They have no clue. What they say could be completely wrong when it comes to language learning, if that's what you meant. If what you meant was how important it is to learn the pitches vs tones etc then sure, their perspective is definitely the most culturally important one, since it's their language after all. So if that's what you meant, the cultural aspect of it, the actual way it makes a native feel when you learn the pitches and tones and all that, then I would agree with you 100%.

@FeralMina 7 ай бұрын

@@metatronacademy Yes, your second interpretation was correct. To be clear, I’m definitely not saying that first language speakers necessarily make good teachers or can somehow be inherently good judges of teaching methods; we both know how wrong that can be! 🙄😆 I was moreso saying that first language speakers of minority languages/cultures should be honored as the sole caretakers of their own language/culture (i.e. the idea of culture and language as intellectual property), especially so regarding minority languages or cultures and, as such, they should have the final say in what exactly is a respectful way to interact with their language and culture, or even to decide if their language or culture should be learned by outsiders at all. For context, if it matters, especially around my views on learning tone or pitch accent, I am a learner of a endangered tonal language that is indigenous to North America. As someone who is not a first speaker of that language, it is my place to honor both those who are first speakers and the language/culture itself by doing my best to honor the language - not as I personally think it *should* be honored, but in the ways that are culturally appropriate, as define by the culture itself. Where I come from, I would have no right to come into that space and behave however I want and then dictate how they should interpret my actions, you know? Like, I don’t do what I think should make them feel respected and then expect them to feel respected; I learn what they actually find respectful and then do THAT instead, ya know? So that’s how things are where I come from. In said language, the first speakers are nearly all elderly and there are far more learners than first speakers, so you can imagine what a devastating impact we learners could have on language and cultural preservation if we’re not careful. For example, if learners aren’t being careful to learn the use of tone accurately (as well as acquiring the ways of thinking and being that are the foundation of the language), experts say that the tonal aspects (and other qualities that are very foreign to English speakers, like classificatory verbs and other culturally-driven aspects of the grammar) in our language might become extinct within a generation or two, even if we do manage to save the rest of the language. That’s huge. There are other big impacts as well that may come from having so few first speakers, especially relative to the quantity of learners. So we learners are positioned to decimate the language if we’re not careful, whereas with other languages (like Japanese) that might not be concerning at all. I suppose if learners of Japanese don’t want to learn pitch accent or the cultural norms around the language or whathaveyou, for whatever reason, at worst it might be taken as rude or ignorant, or their Japanese might end up sounding unnatural in content or pronunciation, or it might make them harder to understand by first speakers. (Or maybe no one will mind at all, what do I know? Nothing.) But ultimately Japanese is a thriving language with millions of speakers, it will easily endure a few careless hacks. Not all languages are sitting so pretty, as it were. So maybe that helps fill out the picture of where I’m coming from. Thanks for listening, and have a lovely day!

@ReavinBlue 8 ай бұрын

Most languages in the world have tonal queues. In portuguese we have words like Côco (coconut) and Cocô (Shit), only diference here is pitch pronounciation, tonal syllable being in different "ô" each time. nobody says portuguese is a tonal language because of that. Japanese is not at all tonal, though it must've had some tonality in the past. Japanese is a syllabale based (consonant+vowel) language, with very few single consonants, and most of the time they have a tonic syllabe to diferentiate. another similar example in portuguese the word Cágado (small turtle) and the word Cagado (a passive verb meaning to be shat). nobody gets those mistaken, and there are millions more of examples. Japanese have to accept they have a stress tonic syllabe system now, that tonality has been forgotten in their language.

@ReavinBlue 8 ай бұрын

Plus, in most everyday aspects of the language, they themselves ignore pitch accent completely. Mostly they only use it when they're correcting people.

@VieiraFi 8 ай бұрын

@@ReavinBlue Sim, nós conseguiríamos compreender pelo contexto, mas pode zoar um pouco ridículo nesses exemplos 😂 Talvez seja similar com "anno" vs "ano" em italiano, ou "penne" vs "penne"

@donato286 8 ай бұрын

@@ReavinBlue Careful here! Tônico and tonal are not the same thing. Sílaba tônica is typically translated into English as a "stressed syllable". I've seen "tonic syllable" as well, but I prefer "stressed syllable" specifically to avoid the confusion between "tonic" and "tonal". "Tonic" simply means "emphasized, higher in intensity". "Tonal" however refers to "having different tones". As you've shown in your examples, the accent in Portuguese relies on the position and intensity of the stressed syllable, rather than on the tone that is applied to that syllable, so it's a stress-timed language (Portuguese from Europe) or a syllable-timed language (Portuguese from Brazil). Tonal languages, however, rely on the position and intensity of a stressed syllable, but also on the *tone* that's applied to it. My native language Serbo-Croatian is an example of a tonal language. When we pronounce a stressed syllable, we also apply a tone that modifies the syllable during its pronunciation. So in words like lûk (arch) and lȕk (onion), the position of the emphasis is the same, the vowel is the same (pronounced the same as the Portuguese vowel 'u'), but the tone isn't. In the first word, the tone is long and it first goes slightly up and then falls. In the second word, the tone is short and starts for a split-second at a higher pitch, but drops immediately. The difference between Serbo-Croatian and Japanese is that in a tonal language like mine, the tone of the stressed syllable changes as we pronounce that syllable (the tone goes up and down on the same syllable). In Standard Japanese, however, that's not the case. Each syllable maintains its own tone (high, low or flat) throughout the pronunciation of the syllable (the tone doesn't go up or down on the same syllable). That's why Japanese is a pitch-accent language, but not a tonal language. The term "tonal language" is reserved for languages like Serbo-Croatian and Mandarin, where there is this upward or downward tone change on a single syllable.

@cahallo5964 8 ай бұрын

It's like when you miss a tilde in written Spanish but it's very obvious, "me comi un pan" nobody honestly will ask wtf is a comi because it so obvious he meant comí. Context is king!

@Jay_in_Japan 8 ай бұрын

Tilde is ñ Not í

@cahallo5964 8 ай бұрын

@@Jay_in_Japan ACENTO GRÁFICO O TILDE LLEVA L I EN COMÍ , LA Ñ LLEVA VIRGUILLA Y LA U EN PINGÜINO LLEVA DIÉRESIS. No corrija si no sabe.

@tanizaki 8 ай бұрын

@@cahallo5964He was right to correct you. It’s an accent not a tilde. Take your L and move on.

@cahallo5964 8 ай бұрын

@@tanizaki maybe in English

@lingred975 8 ай бұрын

@@tanizaki wrong. in Spanish, we have accent and tilde. accent is the stress (marks the strong syllable and all words have it). tilde is the á,é,í,ó,ú marker on the vowels that appears if certain conditions are met.

@airynod 8 ай бұрын

Well articulated. Pitch accent is like the stress in the English. Technically you can ignore it and speak like a mad man, and people can still understand you. It might come weird to natives, and that's all.

@amyohta1675 3 ай бұрын

Ignoring pitch accents doesn't make you sound like a madman. Some areas of Japan, actually, have no pitch accent. This is part of the beautiful regional differences of Japanese. :) I think what makes Japanese accents sound most natural is when foreign speakers can nicely do Japanese syllable (moraic) timing. Speaking Japanese with English stress-timing can be harder for Japanese people to parse. But, adults have huge variation in their ability to pronounce foreign languages, so there will always be L2 speakers with strong accents. And the world is richer for it, in my opinion.

@Lizardon1012 8 ай бұрын

My university Japanese teachers had very questionable pronunciation. I agree that as a learner you don't have to learn pitch accent, but if you're a university teacher I feel like you should sound as close to native as possible. Because otherwise the students might imitate you and it's gonna create habits that can be hard to fix if wanted. With all the money we pay for our education I expect something better.

@In.New.York.I.Milly.Rock. 6 ай бұрын

You pay for education?

@cryptnotic 6 ай бұрын

If you speak perfectly, then they will think you understand everything perfectly. That can be a bit risky.

@alexiscool8474 Ай бұрын

Are native speakers really able to perceive and abide by all these rules in their own speech? Do they never forget how a particular conjugation changes the accent of a word, or how to say something with greater formality? Native English speakers make phonetic mistakes all the time. PREscription vs PERscription, DEtails vs deTAILS, adverTIZEment vs adverTIZment etc. and we don’t even have formal and informal register.

@Reikianolla 8 ай бұрын

Isn't this just the same as when learning a language with non-systematic emphasis? Is it NECESSARY to learn the correct emphasis for every word? No. Does it make you sound better? Yes, of course.

@MrRabiddogg 8 ай бұрын

I think homophonic words and/or false friends would be more confusing to a foreign language.

@Zapatero078 8 ай бұрын

hello weeb ones

@FuchsHund 8 ай бұрын

Savage 🤣🤣🤣‼️

@MrAllmightyCornholioz 8 ай бұрын

Compared to tones in languages like Mandarin or Vietnamese, pitch accents aren't that important. The main thing pitch accents do is make you sound like a native speaker. I think some people that are pro-pitch accents come to think that pitches functions exactly like tones which they are kinda are but kinda not. They are interesting though and when you learn japanese words you may learn the pitch accent without realizing it.

@tvesarathavrtraghna3688 4 ай бұрын

I don't know about Japanese but ancient yamnaya dialects like vedic sanskrit and ancient greek and PIE itself will not work without pitch accent.

@MrTotoleouf 3 ай бұрын

Pitch accent is so usless in my opinion. in French, we have a ton of words with the same pronunciation, the context speaks for itself.

@amj.composer 8 күн бұрын

Idk why but dougen is so insufferable, ik it's just me but yeah. Like after his vids I gave fewer fucks about pitch accent

@williamhall3043 8 ай бұрын

Bet you can’t

@metatronacademy 8 ай бұрын

I can’t what?

@PandaHernandez23 8 ай бұрын

Say video correctly @@metatronacademy

@metatronacademy 8 ай бұрын

Of course I can 😂 unless there is sarcasm I’m not getting (?)

@prince223681 8 ай бұрын

Get fluent and then study pitch accent. Why would you care about pitch accent when your japanese isn't at least conversationally fluent

@Praw-Too-Ehleem 8 ай бұрын

I used to think Japanese would be hard, until I saw the words in English letters. Then I saw how easy it was. Like super easy. But only if you are able to read it too. I didn't know how similar the sounds were to english spelling, just based off of hearing them talk. Somethings were confusing, like U's being silent or not at the end of a word, etc, but mostly just easy. I'm not fluent or anything, but as I was learning, this is what I noticed. Never cared to be fluent because I'll never need Japanese. Unfortunately, the only languages that benefit me as an American are English and Spanish. And I hate both. Ole well. I would learn Italian but it's just another backwards, middle aged, caveman Latin derived language. Sounds pretty though, but I can't bring my self to speak so stupidly. Similar to spanish. A very very stupid language that needs updating.

@seanlennart4740 8 ай бұрын

TLDR in my experience Japanese don’t care about pronunciation of words, they care about your wrong sentence there is a well know song by Yamamoto Linda named 猫いうち I’m still dumb enough to translate. the singer starts the song singing “ulalala ulalala” which is of course transliterated as ウララ, “Urara”. now comes the kick in the balls: to a western speaker the singing clearly sounds like “udada udada” with very pronounced duh sound. asking my Japanese friends and partner explaining how that works they are like “explaining what? she says l/r” and can’t hear the d bc they think about kana. this is like literally every time I ask about wild pronunciations of Japanese to friends, I observed that my friends at least tend to not listen to my question about the word but tell me how weird the rhythmic phrasing of my sentence is. Also do me favour, ask a Japanese Person about the pronunciation of が kana as ng and why some say it, who does it and when it is or was spoken. people always look at me as if I invented that conspiracy even if their friend next to them speaks like that. Not saying that pitch accent is irrelevant, pitch is what I’m doing wrong most of the time but before pitch comes rhythmic phrasing of sentences. IMHO people should bring out their drum notations instead of pitch notations and start flame wars about that topic first.

@Oldiesyoungies 8 ай бұрын

english is a pitched language, and i'm sure italian is also

@metatronacademy 8 ай бұрын

No, Italian and English are absolutely not pitch based languages. Swedish or ancient Greek or Serbo Croatian but not Italian or English.

@Oldiesyoungies 8 ай бұрын

then why do english speakers make a rising pitch at the ends of their questions?@@metatronacademy

@Oldiesyoungies 8 ай бұрын

Joseph went to the store. Joseph went to the store? these sentences are pitched differently@@metatronacademy

@Karl-pk5xl 8 ай бұрын

You're talking about intonation, not pitch accent ("tonal stress"). That's another pair of shoes. Intonation also exists in tonal languages like Mandarin Chinese or Vietnamese.

@Oldiesyoungies 8 ай бұрын

intonation,,,,tonal,,,, do we see anything of interest?? hmm? lol@@Karl-pk5xl

@philipb6456 Ай бұрын

LOL BTW Elderly has nothing to do with ability to learn language. I am 71 and speak 6 languages. I can learn a new language infinitely better than your average 20 year old, in half the time. Interesting video. But that is a huge stereotypical mistake in your video. I find it actually offensive. You should know better. Such a statement makes me question everything you say.

@philipdavis7521 8 ай бұрын

It’s not often i disagree with Metatron, but I think in this case he is taking a ‘teacher’ perspective, not a learner perspective. The importance of learning the principles of pitch accent for a beginner is not about learning to pronounce Japanese clearly - it’s about learning how to ‘hear’ Japanese. You don’t need to learn all the rules - you need to just know the basic principles in order to hear it as you listen (and practice by chorusing or shadowing Japanese language clips) so that your Japanese will naturally follow the correct pattern. Early exposure to the basic principles behind pitch accents improves listening comprehension significantly, and this allows faster learning.

@juandiegovalverde1982 8 ай бұрын

You speak Japanese fluently and you don´t speak Spanish???

@alpacamale2909 8 ай бұрын

The Japanese should honestly abandon Kanji. it's such a time consuming an inefficient way of written communication. its benefits like reading faster hardly outweigh its cons. Even in the modern era young Japanese people are starting to forget them because of the heavy use of character prediction in smartphones. And if people are going to complain about Japanese having way too many homonyms to them I say the same, Context is king.

@Jay_in_Japan 8 ай бұрын

You've clearly never tried reading Japanese in kana-only. It's miserable. Kanji are there for a reason

@alpacamale2909 8 ай бұрын

@@Jay_in_Japan Who is saying Kana is the solution. Katakana and hiragana are terrible. Japanese needs a Hangul-like approach + pitch accent diacritics.

@alpacamale2909 8 ай бұрын

@@Jay_in_Japan I actually made a writing system to write in japanese. here's the link prnt DOT sc SLASH emhGrda03bNF

@Guy-cb1oh 8 ай бұрын

Whoa. The Pitch accent is already a heated enough debate without opening up that can of worms....

@AthanasiosJapan 8 ай бұрын

Because everyone has a a smartphone now, it is very easy to check how to read or write a kanji. Also, literacy in Japan is very high. No need to change something that works.

@potman4581 8 ай бұрын

Pitch accent is one aspect of Japanese prosody. You cannot speak a language without timing it somehow. Therefore, the question, "Should I learn pitch accent?" is misleading. The real substance behind that question is, "Should I force Japanese to conform to my native language's stress-timing?" You don't have a choice. If you want to speak Japanese correctly, you need to "learn the pitch accent". It's about as acceptable not to as it is to speak English while putting the emPHAsis on the wrong syLLABle.

@16-BitGuy 8 ай бұрын

But there are some japanese dialects even without pitch accent, and most speakers of these aren't really aware of it when learning and speaking standard japanese

@potman4581 8 ай бұрын

@@16-BitGuy I'm speaking of Standard Japanese, as is the Metatron, I expect (haven't seen the video yet, but that's the register he speaks). I am not aware of any Japanese dialects that don't have pitch accent, but assuming you are entirely correct, every language marks accent *somehow* . If these dialects don't mark it with pitch, they may use stress, or something else. My point is, you must learn the timing of a language in order to even have a remote hope of speaking it properly.

@metatronacademy 8 ай бұрын

I have lived in Japan for 4 years and even though I liked learning and using the correct pitches, I’ve seen multiple people being fluent in Japanese and no nothing of pitches in fact messing them all. What you say makes me realise you dont speak Japanese yourself or you would have known this. No offense of course

@potman4581 8 ай бұрын

@@metatronacademy Am half-Japanese and have followed you for many, many years. I'm not a Patreon supporter because I don't have a lot of money, but I'm a huge fan of your work. I know well your history of having lived in Japan (and in fact am subscribed to your Japanese channel), but I'm born and raised American so I think your Japanese is better than mine. However, it makes me a little sad to see your response, because I think you have misunderstood my point. My point isn't that it's *impossible* to speak Japanese without knowing pitch accent. Indeed many do speak it very well without knowing anything about it, and perhaps without knowing what prosody even is. Steve Kaufmann, Rachel from Rachel and Jun, Abroad in Japan, Sharla, etc. are all great speakers of Japanese that do not know proper pitch accent. No, my point is somewhat a pendantic linguistic one. You have to speak Japanese with *some* kind of accenting, by definition. If you're not speaking with proper pitch accent, you're probably forcing an incorrect stress accent on top of it. You can't speak Japanese without accenting it somehow. Therefore, it's *important* to learn pitch accent, because without it, you're not *speaking* correctly, though I'm sure you could write and read correctly. Hope that clears it up.

@potman4581 8 ай бұрын

@@mechupaunhuevon7662 That's a very interesting point, thanks for sharing. If you don't mind me asking, how do they time their speech without marking any kind of accent? Is their prosody still syllable-timed? I suppose it couldn't very well be stress-timed if they have no stress. Do they pronounce every mora identically in length, pitch, loudness, intensity, etc.? Like a perfect monotonic speech, almost like a robot (not meant pejoratively, I just can't find a better descriptor)?