Another common pitch difference that I feel is iconic is 雨 あめ ame (high-low) rain 飴 あめ ame (low-high) candy I remember this because for rain, the rain is coming down-the pitch comes down. For candy, kids jump up after lots of candy-the pitch rises
@@nicbentulan probably not. Most likely context fills in that gap. Like the English word Bat and Bat. Spelled same and sound the same, it’s simply context. But I’m still new to Japanese, so…. Don’t take my word for it
@@nicbentulan I don't know if this is what you were thinking of but pitch can differ between dialects. E.g. the word for dog (inu) has a different pitch in standard Japanese and Kansai dialect but there is no way to indicate that in kana or kanji or romaji.
Well, the Japanese actually did the same thing the other way around. They changed the meaning of the English words "bitch" and "s*x" to this: "bicchi"="slut"; "sekkusu"="a f*ck".
Depends on dialects. Many japanese dialects dont have tones/pitch accents and some do. Even so japanese can still understand you based on context alone.
The spanish part was hilarious, I'm sorry for everyone who didn't understand it, you missed a good laugh He basically said: I speak to meet hot gir... nice people and to make friends.
@何 I got one class where we must remember constitution per verse iirc e pluribus unum in fgo (eg numero uno in ad) and wiki got a bit of subtlety but a similar to id branch bhinneka tunggal(high register gangsal etc iirc) ika and an agendas regarding five principles taken as base instead of derived from theos
12:22 "if you want to be a voice actor [...] you need to perfect your Japanese" This is actually an instance where stress accent in English can change the context of a word. Yuta here said "PERfect", which is how the word is used as an adjective, but as a verb, it is pronounced "perFECT". In English, we have many words like this, which change their stress patterns depending on their part of speech. "COMbat" is a noun, "comBAT" is a verb. Of course, we clearly understood what he meant and said. So it should just show that even if your accent isn't perfect, you can still be understood. I however point this out because it is such a subtle feature of English that so few people know, but native speakers should know it intuitively, and they might be able to make an analogy between these types of accent shifts (PERfect vs perFECT) with different pitch patterns.
There's the classic example from the movie 'The Conversation': "He'd kill us if he got the chance." "He'd kill US if he got the chance." Inflecting "us" carries a massive amount of new meaning.
To be fair, stuff like this is really hard if you're not a native speaker/started to learn a language at a very young age. I'm really thanful that my parents thought it worth their time and money to take me to English lessons when I was just 3-4 years old.
Italian has this too. In fact, some words that are written the exact same have completely different meaning depending on stress (the classic example: "PRINcipi" means "princes", while "prinCIpi" means "principles"). Some languages, however, always put the stress on the same syllable, so they don't have that (French has weak stress on the last voiced syllable 100% of the time, and Icelandic has strong stress on the first syllable pretty much always).
@@bokumo7063 That's not really the same thing. That's true in any language. The word you put the most emphasis on carries more focus in the sentence, even if the language has other means of doing that like case endings and word order. Obviously the ear hears the most emphatic word over the others. What I'm talking about is that there are a handful of words in English that change parts of speech depending on accent. So COMbat is a noun, comBAT is a verb; CONflict is a noun, conFLICT is a verb; IMport is a noun, imPORT is a verb, etc. One of the reasons for this is that as verbs these words have the option of taking additional endings, such as ing or ed. So, EXploit as a noun, exPLOITs as a verb, exPLOITing as a verbal adjective, and exPLOITed as a past tense verbal adjective.
Yeah, I find it really frustrating that when I studied Japanese in college, there was not even a token attempt to teach us that Japanese is a pitch-based language. I've long been vaguely aware that it is, but to this day I can never remember which "hashi" is which, or which "sake" means "alcohol" and which means "salmon". It seems like such a basic part of the language that in a classroom setting, a teacher should tell you you're mispronouncing the word if you get the pitches wrong. But they didn't teach it to us that way, so I know a lot of Japanese words, but I don't know the correct pitches for any of them.
I suppose conversing with other people in Japanese may allow you to gain a rough idea on which pitches to use when pronouncing words; I do agree that your teacher should’ve done that since not even giving an eye to pitch pronunciation seems very inconvenient and impractical for actual speaking.
Same here for my Japanese classes in college. I mean, they focus 100% on tone in Chinese classes and then 0% on pitch in Japanese classes - and for me the Japanese pitch stuff is easier to make sense of actually, maybe a bit more subtle. It seems that because it isn't 100% necessary it gets 100% dropped which feels like a betrayal in retrospect. I noticed that some Japanese language partners learn stress patterns in English and some don't, and the ones who do speak way more naturally. I don't like the baby treatment that Yuta mentioned. However, I literally got into arguments with some Japanese people about whether Japanese even has pitch, which always ended when I provided undeniable examples of incorrect pitch vs correct pitch. It seems to be invisible to most native speakers.
@@douglassmalone-omeally1683 its normal that most native speakers cant realize the linguistic features without actually learning it, because these are simply intrinsic properties internalized during the language acquisition.
Yuta-sensei, can you please teach pitch accents in sentences? Because everyone only teaches it for one word, which is not how we converse. Even if it's a few example sentences, it would be great 🙏
pitch accent works in word for sentences its called intonation for prominence its emphasizing a word from the other words in one sentences dogen didnt mentioned intonation but prominence had already been mentioned preface to japanese linguistics book is good but only a passage maybe other jp learning forum?
@@prezentoappr1171 I know you've written something really useful but can you please punctuate your sentences? It's really hard to read and understand as a non-native.
@@SeraYagami smh my android sent message is deleted: tldr then idont have time for know: pitch accent intonation prominence. resources: OJAD JMBREENDICT websit or aedict3, wadoku(.)de, wiktio-nary, dogen vid, apple's built in dict.
Instead of using google translate, a good site to use is ‘prosody tutor Suzuki’ which allows you to input Japanese, and it will output the pitch contour for the word/phrase
I've already discovered pronunciation of Google Translate is not correct for some words, so it cannot be trusted (they don't tell you which words are pronounced correctly).
Lo bueno de ser hispano parlante es que el japones tiene los mismos 5 sonidos vocalicos que en español. A good thing of being a Spanish speaker is that Japanese has the same 5 vowel sounds as Spanish.
Hello! I'm about to be 14 this month and I'm trying to learn Japanese to go to Japan because my family and I don't wanna be those type of people that will ask locals if they speak English, also because we don't to be in Tokyo all the time, we want to explore the country, and learn more about it! I'm fluent in English and Spanish and I'm going to take French classes in 9th grade (which is a month away). Your channel has helped me a lot and thank you for giving us a chance to learn Japanese!
I have lived in Sweden my whole life (32 years), and it wasn't until I started to learn Japanese I learned that Swedish used pinch accents. But even then I find it very difficult to intentionally change pitch. So as of right now, I just hope it comes with time from hearing Japanese.
@@danielantony1882 Watching with subs won't really benefit language learning until you can already follow most of what is said. Otherwise your brain will just auto-focus on subs and not put enough attention to the language itself. Watch raw or with japanese subs.
@@harshmnr Oh, you've been missing out lol. Matt vs Japan, Japanese from Zero, Japanese Ammo with Misa, and Steve Kaufmann have all covered it within the past month or so(except Misa ig). Also, Matt vs Japan had a huge debate with JFZ about pitch accent spanning several hours of content.
@@marker52 Oh huh. Well I don't think I've watched many videos from those channels anyway so I guess that's why they're not in my recommended. But that's cool. ~:~
The reason people say pitch accent isn't important for non-native speakers is because most Japanese people won't correct the foreigner. Thus for foreigners, pitch accent isn't considered as important as proper grammar/syntax. It has also been said that it's not as important for communication unless you want to speak like a native speaker (Dogen). I argue in favour of pitch-accent being important to just learning. It helps to incorporate it early instead of having to basically relearn everything you've learned just to learn the pitch-accent for it. Learning everything at once will take time but it'll make it easier in the end because you have all the tools you need already to speak like a native speaker even if you don't want to in the first place (which is weird to me because if you're learning a language why wouldn't you want to sound as native as possible?).
If you're learning Japanese primarily to read a lot of books, watch a lot of films and anime, and listen to a lot of Japanese music, then sounding as native as possible is not the highest priority. I don't think that's weird. Everyone has different reasons for studying a langauge (and also, lots of people like learning a language but dislike speaking it or dislike people lol).
To (indirectly) answer your question: I reached a native-like level in a foreign language (let's call it X) and yet at some point I found myself actually trying to sound less native because I want others to recognize me being not X. This may sound weird to some people, but I simply don't want people to think I'm X.
@@xolang I totally get that. I never reached the native level for my X but it was enough that people didn't notice it and it wasn't good for me in the situation I was in, or often find myself in. :/ After that realization, I stopped trying to sound like a native. I've come to a conclusion that, for me, my identity as Z(my nationality) is gonna be Z. I have no reasons to change it and the language Z will influence how I speak no matter what language I speak so might as well roll with it. And it's actually great because people tend to be more forgiving when it's noticeable you're not 'that fluent'. lol
I totally agree about learning "decent" pronunciation of any language. I don't believe that incorrect speech patterns can be simply unlearned a few years later.
I strongly disagree. You need to understand most learners have first to learn the correct pronunciation of Japanese sounds (vowels and consonants), then get around with the notion of morae (distinguishing between short and long vowels, and pronouncing geminate consonants as they are supposed to be pronounced, also giving ん the right tempo, and learning how to pronounce it at the end of an utterance - without release - and before vowels, y, w). Only when all this has been mastered maybe it will make sense to introduce the notion of pitch accent, but anyway regular exposure to spoken Japanese makes it easy to acquire a decent intonation even without consciously making an effort. The way Yuta explains it is totally deceptive. In his view, you will sound like speaking katakana-eigo if you don’t use pitch accent correctly, whereas if you want your Japanese to sound as decent as his English you need to learn pitch accent. That is so messed up. Actually, his whole prosody when speaking English is quite robotic and clearly foreign, so he didn’t learn the English equivalent of pitch accent, so to speak. And yet, he sounds clear and good enough for a foreigner. What he did, on the other hand, was polishing his pronounciation of vowels and consonants, and learn how to stick them together in words and sentences. Which is the way it should be, that’s the basic step. Also take into account pitch accent varies from one region to another, and some Japanese dialects don’t have a pitch accent at all.
Here's my 2 cents: If you pay attention, 80% of pitch accent will come automatically without you knowing it when you just listen & imitate japanese while studying. If you want to sound like a native, you should definitely study it, but not until you're ready for it. I didn't start pitch accent until I was pretty much speaking near fluent and brought my grammar and speaking skills up to par. Cause only that alone is grueling, just getting out there and talking to people/making mistakes/not getting understood and studying Vocabulary & Kanji IS grueling enough. Pitch accent is important yes, but not until you're ready for it cause you'll overburden yourself. Get ALL the basics down first: Grammar, vocabulary & speaking skills, THEN start studying pitch accent.
Yes, I noticed that I've naturally picked up pitch accent too (maybe like 75% of the time it's correct, without formally studying pitch accent). I'm N2 level; learnt though exposure and imitation. Interesting stuff!
Yep. And a good proof that pitch accent comes naturally are words like perfect, that even in English, have different pitches to know the word we’re talking about. “PERfect” is the adjective while “perFECT” is the verb. It comes naturally to English speakers and learners, as this is basically never mentioned when studying the language, yet most people say it like that subconsciously.
As to pitch accent, you can train yourself to listen for it. My native tounge, Finnish, is another high-context language, where the meaning of a word or sentence changes depending on context. Like Ismo's comedy routine, where he presents the Swiss army knife of the Finnish language, "no niin". Even though there is no standard pitch accent, the melody of the word depending on context in the routine changes... ruclips.net/video/9EWMlCusxjQ/видео.html How many can you figure out? (Turn CC on). That Finnish expression is actually how my interest in the Japanese language got started, because I just couldn't seem to stop twitching every time I heard "Nani" in an anime... Also, I've seen a Japanese RUclipsr in Finland, Gen Takagi, have a lot of fun with the expression XD. Another classic is the sentence "kuusi palaa", which can have 9 different meanings depending on context, and that *without* pitch accents. Just google "finnish lesson 1 kuusi palaa". Being attentive to context and pitch accent or "sentence melody" is a good thing in other languages than Japanese and Finnish as well, there are a lot of clues you can get by being attentive to those. Though anime dubs tend to become ruined, because the dub sounds so "flat" in melody compared to the original Japanse...
That's just intonation which occurs in basically any language. An actual pitch accent denotes lexical information which is different (but of course Japanese and other pitch accent languages generally also have intonational pitch).
@@seneca983 I know. But learning to recognize and identify intonation patterns also helps with ones pitch accent recognition and identification, and vice versa. Like, I know Ismo uses intonation in his skit to convey emotional context, the difference to Japanese and other pitch accent languagess is that it conveys lexical information. And recognizing both in *any* language is a good skill to have under your belt, IMHO.
@@demianlugo7677 I'm not talking about written accents, but speaking accents, and dialects, even the phrase structures are different from region to region
@@Yamabi_Kaze pitch accent in Japanese is different to regional accents. It has more to do with which syllables have a raised pitch. In Spanish we have similar rules.
Your opinion is very close to what Matt Vs Japan suggests. Would be interesting if you do a collab with him or Dogen and discuss these topics. By the way, as you may know, the person you were referring to (George Trombley, creator of the Japanese From Zero textbooks) partially changed his opinion after debating Matt Vs Japan. He no longer thinks pitch accent is stupid and intends to study it himself.
@@koreanfromzero It's the man himself! I really enjoy your videos. Recently I rediscovered your "Adventures in Asia" channel and binged a bunch of videos. The one in Osaka hit me hard because Osaka is like my second home but it's been several years since I've been there.
4:30 one of my biggest frustrations with the one semester I took of Japanese at my university was that the teacher was very much against using any words or grammar that were not covered in the class. This was particularly annoying since the pace of the class was really slow compared to the pace I was learning Japanese during my self-study before signing up for the class. Fortunately, the teachers at my Japanese University during my study abroad were perfectly happy with me going above and beyond the content of the class so long as I at least included what we had learned in my assignments. On the subject of pitch accent, the teacher for my grammar class did a short lesson on pitch accent one time and I simply could not hear the difference between the different pitch patterns at the time, so that one lesson just made me want nothing to do with it since it seemed so nuanced and difficult. I think the biggest problem with pitch accent is that most people don't know how to present it in a way that won't scare off students. After spending a little time learning the basic pitch patterns and using tools recommended by Dougen and Matt vs. Japan to train my ability to recognize the different patterns when I hear them, I don't find pitch accent itself to be terribly difficult to learn, although learning all of the various advanced rules is a different story.
My classes are the same. Most of us have incredibly limited vocabulary and the exercises also use the most basic vocabulary. Depends on the teacher but when we use something not covered we sometimes get points taken too which is very frustrating Edit: one prof mentioned pitch accent briefly then told is we will Pick up a good one when we listen to a lot of Japanese and done with the conversation lol
Do you reckon it would've helped if the teacher had said something along the lines of "you won't get it immediately, but that's okay. For now, just be aware of its existence. You'll get used to it in time"?
As a native Spanish speaker, I feel like I'll have an easier time with this because our language also uses accents, we even mark it in some words, so hopefully I'll learn Japanese pitch accent intuitively. No sabía que Yuta hablaba Español! -Para conocer chicas guapas- Para hacer amigos eh? Ya veo... 😂
It's true that native speakers are usually not aware of how their languages work. Even if it's as simple things as vowel harmony and alternating consonants in my language. And they do that simple mistakes even in high school.
Learning pitch accent in Japanese kinda reminds me of learning a regional Spanish accent/dialect. Doing either one isn't extremely important for second language speakers, but they help a ton with making you sound like a native speaker.
A friend from Osaka of mine said that the problem with pitch accent is that the pitches are different depending on the dialect and often completely opposite
I would say yes, I don't know a lot of Japanese but even I can notice the difference now that I spend more time analyzing how things are said. It also helps me enjoy humor that I might not have understood before.
You'll find the "standard English" for the country you are in by watching the news. Each country has its own accent and words, but if you listen to the news or just TV in general you get a very bland version of that countries English (unless the presenter, or actor has a very thick accent or playing a character with a regional accent). BBC News English is very close to "Queen's English", and you will not hear "cockney" English even though that is more likely the closest you'll every get to a true historic English. Another place to hear a very standard English is in music where we bring in pitch and set beats. Quiet often the singer's accent will disappear completely.
When I learned Japanese at a German uni from a Japanese teacher, she was always very keen on teaching us the correct pitch accent. I am really grateful she was like that because now I feel more confident in actually speaking Japanese. That might be because of my perfectionism but the German language also works via pitch accent. For example umFAHREN means to drive around something, but UMfahren means to drive straight over/through something without remorse.
@@coratisongames This is the type of thing that's learned instinctively so most native speakers don't even realize it unless it's a language where the writing makes pitch clear through diacritics and such.
I think German, just like English, has stressed syllables, louder or longer, which you showed well with the caps, rather than pitch accents, as is the case with Japanese where most syllables are the same length and take on a melodious approach. But linking the two definitly helps with learning either language, French for example doesn't have much stressed syllables, so it can be difficult to hear pitches and stresses in other languages when your native language is French (from France at least) !
With the "great" example, there's also a low-high-low and elongated way of pronouncing it, indicating sarcasm (grEhht). I've always found it funny studying Japanese when teachers insist English has no pitch accent, when it does. Not in the same manner as in Japanese, but it's definitely there.
Estoy en shock. Embuste. Ya sabía que él sabe Español. XD Hace mucho tiempo él había hecho un video de él intentando hablar con personas en Español en (si no me falla la memoria) México.
For years, my favorite part of Yuta’s videos has been how he promotes his email group. Normally for most people it’d be annoying, but I find it funny how he can twist and turn the topic and find a way to fit his lessons in. I’m being genuine, it’s a good tactic and he does it well.
I'm always floored by just how intelligent you are. You really have an awesome way of communicating ideas and it makes you a really informative and interesting teacher! Thank you for the content(:
I want to learn pitch accent to be able to seem more willing to learn Japanese but to me its really difficult to change how I've learnt to pronounce a word so what I do is when I see a new word I go onto a video of someone pronouncing it and replicate it over and over so that I can pronounce it correctly but I still mess up with pitch accent a lot
"Let me introduce you to this special word, "変態", which actually just means pervert and doesn't mean the thing you watch on a daily basis." Damn, how did he know?
English has several words that sound similar but mean different things, and understanding them is context based, so I would imagine that it is very much the same in Japanese. No one would surely be confused about eating with a pair of bridges... or driving across chopsticks. There has been an odd debate lately over the absolute necessity of pitch accents (between non-Japanese teachers) and why it is the most important thing ever. There has been this mindset of "Perfect Japanese" that does more harm than good. It's also worth noting that yes, we would never correct you on your language skills, we would just correct each other. Because English speakers can't stand not being able to correct each other over everything, and now that Pitch Accent is all the rage, we have something new to be dogmatic about.
The argument isn’t about why it’s the most important thing ever nor is it about acquiring “Perfect Japanese”. It’s about why you should do at least the bare minimum to have a grasp of pitch in order to hear it when you’re listening to Japanese because even the bare minimum will have large benefits in your overall ability.
I was first made aware of the existence of pitch accent after having studied Japanese for nine years while watching a Dougen video. None of my teachers in that time ever mentioned it once. The idea that I would have to relearn the pronunciation of every single word was absolutely horrifying to me. I thought I spoke I Japanese with a pretty good accent. I had bragged about it. This threw into question everything I had ever believed about my ability in speaking Japanese. Three years later I still don't have a good answer. I still don't know if I sound like an idiot when I'm speaking Japanese or not. I passed the N1 and I still don't know pitch accent. I'm a translator and I don't know pitch accent. Maybe I picked it up naturally from the time I spend living in Japan. Maybe I didn't. This horrifies me.
You begin by speaking about how intonation can change the meaning of a word in Japanese but then go on to compare it to English intonations and then use an "inflection" as your example. Inflections turn words into questions. I've heard Japanese speakers use this while dropping "desu ka" as well. In English we do have many words that are spelled the same but have different meanings through context and also through pronunciation. Minute (min-net) and Minute (My-new-t) is a good example. They have the exact same spelling but the former pronunciation is a measurement of time while the latter describes something very small. Perhaps examples like this can help people better understand why intonation and pronunciation is important
I think Yuta is right on the money though, the two pronunciation of minute essentially stems from which syllables are being stressed. With the former, we stressed the first, while for the latter we stressed on the second. And Yuta had already established earlier on that Japanese language does not have stressed syllables
@@playmakersmusic I'm not saying he's wrong or that you are either but intonation works differently in English than it does in Japanese. In Japanese it can change the meaning of a word while in English intonation it is used more in expressing our mental state (we're questioning, expressing uncertainty or being definite etc) and it doesn't alter the meaning of the words itself. So in this respect I think Japanese intonation is more comparable to stressed syllables in English.
At the beginning you say that we understand Japanese people when they speak terrible English, but this isn't really the case. I often get thrown a loop when Japanese people mispronounce English words by saying them with hiragana, or they remove stress from words. This is also ignoring the sentence stress differences. When I first came to Japan I found it really hard to understand Japanese people, because they spoke the whole sentence with no stress, or stress on every word. Stress on no words means you can't hear it as it's too quiet, and on every word is really confusing for native speakers if it's not just a simple sentence, as it's essentially telling us to listen to every word, and that's too much information.
Plus they add extra syllables to every word that ends in a consonant. So there is extra information there that shouldn't be there and you have to do a double take!
The biggest problem with pitch accent is how much emphasis was put on it in recent years. Most other aspects of the language are more important, if you can't tell 会社 and 社会 apart, have no idea which particle to put where or call everyone お前, that's way worse than not having correct pitch. However, I do agree that you *absolutely* should know that it exists (for example, by watching Dogen's 10 minute primer), so that you are able to consciously pick up on it. I think making one's own accent as non-annoying as possible is an important goal, out of respect to native speakers, but it's still of minor importance.
This is a tough thing. While I can definitely hear them, I can't replicate them at all. I'm one of those folks who can't even sing a verse of the easiest songs. Voice control can of course be practiced.... but the question is why bother? From my experience, Japanese is a highly contextual language where majority of native speakers will opt to mind read you instead and will use the words only as a rough guideline... so far this has proven to be the truth for the most part (but you're expected to mind read as well :D) I mean, if you're already talented at voice replication/singing/music - yes by all means, check this one off your list too, it will probably happen automatically as you practice speaking in general - but if you're terrible at voice control, focusing on this while the language itself is a nightmare to learn would just make you lose motivation. Just yesterday I spoke with a friend who kept correcting me about 玉 and たまたま 's たま and while I could perfectly hear the pitch difference I just couldn't replicate it to the extent she'd say 'it's good now'. Countless examples pop up in my head, but most of the time, unlike Chinese where you completely change everything and can mess up big time - in Japanese people will actually understand you without any issues.
learning japanese is so hard, and big progress needs a lot of time. grammar, particle, KANJI, dialect and now pitch accent. And good learning material in german is rare too. learning english is thousand times more easier than this.
I think mastering these accents is important if you want to sound natural. Chinese language also has tones for every character (漢字). Many foreigners sound foreign because they don't master the correct tones.
God, this concept was totally lost on me as a kid when it came to Japanese, cause the only people I had to speak Japanese with were my grandma and like one kid in high school. And it's not like we ever talked about anything complicated or for very long. It was a weird mix of that and Korean too, so my pitch for both languages was pretty messed up for a while. So it's good that I get to learn this at least now. What I've had to do for a while is to just watch talk shows and street interviews cause other than the two people in my life, that was the only way I could ever hear someone speak everyday Japanese.
The community college Japanese class did not mention pitch accents. Fortunately, the books & websites I use for self-study do. Regarding pitch accents, I had purchased a vegan food item in a Chinese supermarket. My Taiwanese boss didn't understand my pronunciation of the food's name, so I repeated the name, changing pitch on different syllables, until he recognized the word. It made me appreciate the importance of pitch.
You perfectly captured a lot of my thoughts on pitch accent during the recent RUclips debates! All of the illogical arguments people make, like different dialects, Japanese people don't talk about it, Japanese people never correct you... Hopefully it helps convince people when it's coming from a native Japanese speaker. Great job!
What's so illogical about them? If the Japanese themselves don't care about it and are all over the place with it themselves why should we care? There are plenty of Native Japanese teachers of Japanese who say it's worthless for foreigners to learn, Yuta is not the final word concerning the topic. It's also ironic how Yuta with a THICK accent in English is lecturing us on the importance of have near perfect accent-less speech in order to be good at Japanese.
I'd say it differs greatly in other languages. 'Pitch accent' in English is more about inflection; adding intent or emotion to existing words. Sadly there isn't a way to pronounce 'there, their, and they're' to determine their different meanings.
2:10 Just some thoughts, its like having a conversation in Filipino with a friend that does not speak Filipino. --- Sentence: The weather is awful. Correct: Ang "sama" (bad) ng panahon. Incorrect: Ang "samaa" (join) ng panahon... I would understand what they meant, and I would reiterate my friend's accent for their incorrect wording.
I really like pitch accent and every time I hear a new word, I practice the pitch accent. Many people said to me that pitch accent is not important but I still believe it's pretty useful and helps you to improve your pronunciation and communicate your thoughts better :3
I've been learning japanese for a year, why has NOBODY ever told me that Japanese has pitch accents before? I found it interesting how many words sounded the same way and were differenced only by their kanji, and thought it would make them harder to tell apart on a spoken conversation. This answers that question. A similar thing happens in Spanish, where words that contain the same letters in the same order are differenced by which syllable you stress.
To be honest, I don't like when language teachers "baby" their students. When I was learning Chinese ( A language with a heavy emphasis on tone) she never once corrected us on our pronunciation. So when I went to China, my Chinese was barely even understandable. Languages should not watered down for the sake of keeping students in the classroom. It does more harm than good. ):
As a native Mandarin speaker, I assume the Chinese dialect that you learn is Mandarin. Actually, if you have been to different parts of China, you will notice that even in different parts of China, the pronunciation slightly differs. On the North(Beijing), you'll find that the pronunciation is sharper and towards the South(Fujian, Canton, etc.) the pronunciation is softer. I think maybe because your teacher is basing it off on the region, he/she came from.
@@playmakersmusic I understand that . However, we were learning putonghua so there was no emphasis on dialect. Having said that, I think I was just speaking gibberish.
How are people supposed to learn pitch accent though? Please tell me just learning about the patterns and listening for it is enough, because I would rather die than grind through Dogen’s 100+ video course, or try and read a dry-ass textbook explaining every detail, or put the pitch accent of a word on all my flashcards. Personally I’ve noticed that I use the correct pitch accent for words I’ve heard a million times before, like 学校. So I’m really hoping that by continuing to listen to a lot of Japanese I’ll naturally learn the pitch accent for all the words.
When i learn any new vocabulary, i always try to listen to the way it sounds. Pitch accent is almost never the priority of what i listen for, but most times i absorb it subconsciously anyway. I’ve always thought of it in a very similar way to stress accent in english, which is often also paired with pitch in the way i speak, so to me it’s not that hard of a concept to take in.
Hey, for the example at 1:50, when I say "uh-huh" with the accent on the downstep (usually with the "huh" italicized in writing), the meaning is really closer to "I kind of doubt what you're saying, but please do go on..." This is different from the normal "uh-huh," which is a good demonstration of how pitch in English is used to convey emotion. Usually a deliberately flattened pitch, for example, conveys sarcasm
I've enjoyed Japanese media for a decade and have not noticed that the people that speak it uses pitch accent outside of News Anchors, Kizuna Ai, and when I use website dictionaries like Jisho.
i feel like, pitch accent might not make sense logistically in japanese as many people will bring their accent from their native language unintentially anyways, which will kind of undermine the whole point of learning it. plus context kind of fills the void of not understand what hashi im talking about
To me its absolutely clear that pitch accent is very important when speaking japanese. The basic 'tones' from the japanese alphabet are so precise that you cannot ignore pitch accent if you want to sound anywhere near a real japanese. That example with Hashi really says it all.
Learn Japanese with me -> bit.ly/34XumLE
Yes
Ty
So you followed the Matt vs. George debate?
Pretty soon, I'll be enrolling in JASWDC school for beginner Japanese, so I'll be coupling the lessons I learn there, with your lessons.
ゆうたさんはピッチアクセントは日本人レベルなのですが、発音が変なのが残念です。
Another common pitch difference that I feel is iconic is
雨 あめ ame (high-low) rain
飴 あめ ame (low-high) candy
I remember this because for rain, the rain is coming down-the pitch comes down. For candy, kids jump up after lots of candy-the pitch rises
LMAO THAT SONG candyrain
But there's a differing kanji already. What about same kanji, same hiragana (and say no katakana) and same romaji. Can pitch be different?
@@nicbentulan probably not. Most likely context fills in that gap.
Like the English word
Bat and Bat. Spelled same and sound the same, it’s simply context. But I’m still new to Japanese, so…. Don’t take my word for it
@@IcecreamCat23 but bat and bat don't have like a different 'kanji' or pronunciation...?
@@nicbentulan I don't know if this is what you were thinking of but pitch can differ between dialects. E.g. the word for dog (inu) has a different pitch in standard Japanese and Kansai dialect but there is no way to indicate that in kana or kanji or romaji.
"It actually just means 'pervert' and doesn't mean that thing you watch on a daily basis." LMAO
Well, the Japanese actually did the same thing the other way around. They changed the meaning of the English words "bitch" and "s*x" to this: "bicchi"="slut"; "sekkusu"="a f*ck".
@@goishikaiganmademou bicchi no tomodachi sekkusu
@@goishikaiganmademou u missed opportunity to say h spelling as sex or lewd eg franku ecchi shiyouze
I was the 69th like. Nice.
@@muhfadhli7887 ecchi shiooo
Cool, now I am walking around the house saying "he-N-TA-I" lots of times in front of my family. Thank you very much.
LMAOO
If you add some more vocabulary like "CH-i-n-ko" and "U-n-ko," you become a perfect Japanese brat ;-)
@@tykep1009 Pitch accent works on mora bro, not consonants.
fyi: i think this actually has an extremely fucked up meaning
Thanks to that Japanese man Yuta
If you say “no”, Dogen will come after you.
And Misa, and Matt. There'll be a ruckus!
Depends on dialects. Many japanese dialects dont have tones/pitch accents and some do. Even so japanese can still understand you based on context alone.
の
@@darkfire_0579 ンオ
@@LilyUnicorn did you even watch THIS video?
The accents of Hashi (bridge) and Hashi (chopsticks) are opposites of each other in Tokyo and Osaka 😂😂😂
Yes!! My Tokyo-raised mom and her Osakan friend had some conversational confusion because of this!! 🤣🤣
端においてある箸の橋に和紙の鷲がいる。
@@Applepear733 what? They don't use bridges to eat their food?
@@jackmcslay uP
Stop my brain hurts
I love how Yuta incorporates his email list in every video without it being annoying. Good job
And amazing video as always!
All this channel is basically a collection of ads of his list
In every video I'm always waiting to see how he will introduce his email list
@@KarolYuuki facts lol
You don't need to subscribe to every email list, just to the email lists you need to subscribe to...
smoothest plug in ever
Yuta's communication:
10% sound
90% hands
More viable than h3h3’s eyebrows
99% of japanese people use their hands when talking for emphasis
perfect
👋🤲👌🖐🤌🤞👊🙌👐👏
As an Italian, I didn’t even notice XD
Dogen hiding around the corner, gun in hand.
And Matt with the katana
Nix and Wyatt The Gryffindor 😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣
The spanish part was hilarious, I'm sorry for everyone who didn't understand it, you missed a good laugh
He basically said:
I speak to meet hot gir... nice people and to make friends.
Gracias.
actually he didn't meant hot girls, he meant pretty girls
@@lewa.8436 actually he meant beautiful girls or rather lovely
@@siratshi455 nope, the direct translation of 'guapas' it's pretty, for beautiful it would be hermosas and lovely would be preciosas
He meant to say chicas guapas, good looking girls ( guapa, singular means seducing looking, "hot" or gorgeous)
I remember Yuta's email list promo just as well as I've memorized the pledge of allegiance
Legend!
@何 are you even american?
@何 I got one class where we must remember constitution per verse iirc e pluribus unum in fgo (eg numero uno in ad) and wiki got a bit of subtlety but a similar to id branch bhinneka tunggal(high register gangsal etc iirc) ika and an agendas regarding five principles taken as base instead of derived from theos
"Yo hablo para conocer chicas guap- gente buena y hacer amigos" JAJAJAJAJ I LOVED IT
Oh, gente, I thought he said hentai, which was way worse!
LOL!!!!!
@@muttlanguages3912 XD
Oh another じゃじゃじゃじゃ speaking dude, I see you are a person of culture
Ojalá fuera homosexual Yuta 😭😭
12:22 "if you want to be a voice actor [...] you need to perfect your Japanese"
This is actually an instance where stress accent in English can change the context of a word. Yuta here said "PERfect", which is how the word is used as an adjective, but as a verb, it is pronounced "perFECT". In English, we have many words like this, which change their stress patterns depending on their part of speech. "COMbat" is a noun, "comBAT" is a verb.
Of course, we clearly understood what he meant and said. So it should just show that even if your accent isn't perfect, you can still be understood. I however point this out because it is such a subtle feature of English that so few people know, but native speakers should know it intuitively, and they might be able to make an analogy between these types of accent shifts (PERfect vs perFECT) with different pitch patterns.
There's the classic example from the movie 'The Conversation': "He'd kill us if he got the chance." "He'd kill US if he got the chance." Inflecting "us" carries a massive amount of new meaning.
Pretty ironic considering the topic of this video lol
To be fair, stuff like this is really hard if you're not a native speaker/started to learn a language at a very young age. I'm really thanful that my parents thought it worth their time and money to take me to English lessons when I was just 3-4 years old.
Italian has this too. In fact, some words that are written the exact same have completely different meaning depending on stress (the classic example: "PRINcipi" means "princes", while "prinCIpi" means "principles"). Some languages, however, always put the stress on the same syllable, so they don't have that (French has weak stress on the last voiced syllable 100% of the time, and Icelandic has strong stress on the first syllable pretty much always).
@@bokumo7063 That's not really the same thing. That's true in any language. The word you put the most emphasis on carries more focus in the sentence, even if the language has other means of doing that like case endings and word order. Obviously the ear hears the most emphatic word over the others. What I'm talking about is that there are a handful of words in English that change parts of speech depending on accent. So COMbat is a noun, comBAT is a verb; CONflict is a noun, conFLICT is a verb; IMport is a noun, imPORT is a verb, etc.
One of the reasons for this is that as verbs these words have the option of taking additional endings, such as ing or ed. So, EXploit as a noun, exPLOITs as a verb, exPLOITing as a verbal adjective, and exPLOITed as a past tense verbal adjective.
Yeah, I find it really frustrating that when I studied Japanese in college, there was not even a token attempt to teach us that Japanese is a pitch-based language. I've long been vaguely aware that it is, but to this day I can never remember which "hashi" is which, or which "sake" means "alcohol" and which means "salmon". It seems like such a basic part of the language that in a classroom setting, a teacher should tell you you're mispronouncing the word if you get the pitches wrong. But they didn't teach it to us that way, so I know a lot of Japanese words, but I don't know the correct pitches for any of them.
I suppose conversing with other people in Japanese may allow you to gain a rough idea on which pitches to use when pronouncing words; I do agree that your teacher should’ve done that since not even giving an eye to pitch pronunciation seems very inconvenient and impractical for actual speaking.
Same here for my Japanese classes in college. I mean, they focus 100% on tone in Chinese classes and then 0% on pitch in Japanese classes - and for me the Japanese pitch stuff is easier to make sense of actually, maybe a bit more subtle. It seems that because it isn't 100% necessary it gets 100% dropped which feels like a betrayal in retrospect. I noticed that some Japanese language partners learn stress patterns in English and some don't, and the ones who do speak way more naturally. I don't like the baby treatment that Yuta mentioned. However, I literally got into arguments with some Japanese people about whether Japanese even has pitch, which always ended when I provided undeniable examples of incorrect pitch vs correct pitch. It seems to be invisible to most native speakers.
@@douglassmalone-omeally1683 its normal that most native speakers cant realize the linguistic features without actually learning it, because these are simply intrinsic properties internalized during the language acquisition.
Sadly college and school focus writing and reading over actually speaking
@@MyLittleGreenHairdedMermaid and here's why I can't actually speak english irl
Yuta-sensei, can you please teach pitch accents in sentences? Because everyone only teaches it for one word, which is not how we converse. Even if it's a few example sentences, it would be great 🙏
Saved me a watch
pitch accent works in word for sentences its called intonation for prominence its emphasizing a word from the other words in one sentences dogen didnt mentioned intonation but prominence had already been mentioned preface to japanese linguistics book is good but only a passage maybe other jp learning forum?
@@prezentoappr1171 I know you've written something really useful but can you please punctuate your sentences? It's really hard to read and understand as a non-native.
@@SeraYagami smh my android sent message is deleted: tldr then idont have time for know: pitch accent intonation prominence. resources: OJAD JMBREENDICT websit or aedict3, wadoku(.)de, wiktio-nary, dogen vid, apple's built in dict.
@@prezentoappr1171 Thank you so much for your time and the resources!
And yes, Dogen's videos are very useful to me as well.
The thumbnail 🤔
Hey Yuta, how would you rate the pitch accent of google translate?
Idk if this helps but I tried a few different words and Atleast when it’s in Kanji the pitch accent works
Instead of using google translate, a good site to use is ‘prosody tutor Suzuki’ which allows you to input Japanese, and it will output the pitch contour for the word/phrase
@@joshuawood1082 there is also a great site called forvo.com where you can listen to native pronunciation of most Japanese words :P
I've already discovered pronunciation of Google Translate is not correct for some words, so it cannot be trusted (they don't tell you which words are pronounced correctly).
Nah. The database is incomplete. In many cases it won't display the right one. Use the one Joshua Wood recommended.
I'm now sitting in my room saying "uh huh" with different inflections while my family no doubt questions my sanity.
I have a friend who had that experience but while practicing the tones of chinese.
Getting over this awkwardness is the sign of becoming a linguist.
Lo bueno de ser hispano parlante es que el japones tiene los mismos 5 sonidos vocalicos que en español.
A good thing of being a Spanish speaker is that Japanese has the same 5 vowel sounds as Spanish.
Lo hace más facil (・∀・)b
しかし「う」の音は少し違いますね。発音すると口が丸くならない気がして…
Nocierto :v
Ellos no usan la u, sino la ɯ
That's in fact wrong :v
They don't use the u , rather the ɯ
@@iancardenas-spanishbutcomp4074 ?
Same thing for Portuguese!
Hello! I'm about to be 14 this month and I'm trying to learn Japanese to go to Japan because my family and I don't wanna be those type of people that will ask locals if they speak English, also because we don't to be in Tokyo all the time, we want to explore the country, and learn more about it! I'm fluent in English and Spanish and I'm going to take French classes in 9th grade (which is a month away). Your channel has helped me a lot and thank you for giving us a chance to learn Japanese!
I have lived in Sweden my whole life (32 years), and it wasn't until I started to learn Japanese I learned that Swedish used pinch accents. But even then I find it very difficult to intentionally change pitch. So as of right now, I just hope it comes with time from hearing Japanese.
Forsake dubs, embrace the subs :3
When it’s part of your language, you may not always notice it
Had you ever noticed that "finlandsvensk" doesn't have a pitch accent?
@@danielantony1882 Watching with subs won't really benefit language learning until you can already follow most of what is said. Otherwise your brain will just auto-focus on subs and not put enough attention to the language itself. Watch raw or with japanese subs.
@@Kestrel16C I don't think English Subs are an Issue unless you have a serious sub-reading instinct and are easy to distract.
I love this pitch accent arc every educational Japanese channel is going through right now.
Yeah, I'm glad to not be the only person who noticed this as a trend.
I think I've only seen it with Dogen and Yuta..what other channels have been doing it? (Just curious.)
~:~
@@harshmnr Oh, you've been missing out lol. Matt vs Japan, Japanese from Zero, Japanese Ammo with Misa, and Steve Kaufmann have all covered it within the past month or so(except Misa ig). Also, Matt vs Japan had a huge debate with JFZ about pitch accent spanning several hours of content.
@@marker52 Oh huh. Well I don't think I've watched many videos from those channels anyway so I guess that's why they're not in my recommended. But that's cool.
~:~
The drama!
The reason people say pitch accent isn't important for non-native speakers is because most Japanese people won't correct the foreigner. Thus for foreigners, pitch accent isn't considered as important as proper grammar/syntax. It has also been said that it's not as important for communication unless you want to speak like a native speaker (Dogen).
I argue in favour of pitch-accent being important to just learning. It helps to incorporate it early instead of having to basically relearn everything you've learned just to learn the pitch-accent for it. Learning everything at once will take time but it'll make it easier in the end because you have all the tools you need already to speak like a native speaker even if you don't want to in the first place (which is weird to me because if you're learning a language why wouldn't you want to sound as native as possible?).
If you're learning Japanese primarily to read a lot of books, watch a lot of films and anime, and listen to a lot of Japanese music, then sounding as native as possible is not the highest priority. I don't think that's weird. Everyone has different reasons for studying a langauge (and also, lots of people like learning a language but dislike speaking it or dislike people lol).
To (indirectly) answer your question:
I reached a native-like level in a foreign language (let's call it X) and yet at some point I found myself actually trying to sound less native because I want others to recognize me being not X.
This may sound weird to some people, but I simply don't want people to think I'm X.
@@xolang I totally get that. I never reached the native level for my X but it was enough that people didn't notice it and it wasn't good for me in the situation I was in, or often find myself in. :/ After that realization, I stopped trying to sound like a native. I've come to a conclusion that, for me, my identity as Z(my nationality) is gonna be Z. I have no reasons to change it and the language Z will influence how I speak no matter what language I speak so might as well roll with it. And it's actually great because people tend to be more forgiving when it's noticeable you're not 'that fluent'. lol
I totally agree about learning "decent" pronunciation of any language. I don't believe that incorrect speech patterns can be simply unlearned a few years later.
I strongly disagree. You need to understand most learners have first to learn the correct pronunciation of Japanese sounds (vowels and consonants), then get around with the notion of morae (distinguishing between short and long vowels, and pronouncing geminate consonants as they are supposed to be pronounced, also giving ん the right tempo, and learning how to pronounce it at the end of an utterance - without release - and before vowels, y, w). Only when all this has been mastered maybe it will make sense to introduce the notion of pitch accent, but anyway regular exposure to spoken Japanese makes it easy to acquire a decent intonation even without consciously making an effort. The way Yuta explains it is totally deceptive. In his view, you will sound like speaking katakana-eigo if you don’t use pitch accent correctly, whereas if you want your Japanese to sound as decent as his English you need to learn pitch accent. That is so messed up. Actually, his whole prosody when speaking English is quite robotic and clearly foreign, so he didn’t learn the English equivalent of pitch accent, so to speak. And yet, he sounds clear and good enough for a foreigner. What he did, on the other hand, was polishing his pronounciation of vowels and consonants, and learn how to stick them together in words and sentences. Which is the way it should be, that’s the basic step. Also take into account pitch accent varies from one region to another, and some Japanese dialects don’t have a pitch accent at all.
Here's my 2 cents:
If you pay attention, 80% of pitch accent will come automatically without you knowing it when you just listen & imitate japanese while studying.
If you want to sound like a native, you should definitely study it, but not until you're ready for it. I didn't start pitch accent until I was pretty much speaking near fluent and brought my grammar and speaking skills up to par. Cause only that alone is grueling, just getting out there and talking to people/making mistakes/not getting understood and studying Vocabulary & Kanji IS grueling enough.
Pitch accent is important yes, but not until you're ready for it cause you'll overburden yourself. Get ALL the basics down first: Grammar, vocabulary & speaking skills, THEN start studying pitch accent.
Yes, I noticed that I've naturally picked up pitch accent too (maybe like 75% of the time it's correct, without formally studying pitch accent). I'm N2 level; learnt though exposure and imitation. Interesting stuff!
Yeah, similar to Chinese it comes naturally
@darkwing dook descriptivistic linguist vsauce im gonna side with the linguist here
Well said! Couldn't agree more.
Yep. And a good proof that pitch accent comes naturally are words like perfect, that even in English, have different pitches to know the word we’re talking about. “PERfect” is the adjective while “perFECT” is the verb. It comes naturally to English speakers and learners, as this is basically never mentioned when studying the language, yet most people say it like that subconsciously.
As to pitch accent, you can train yourself to listen for it. My native tounge, Finnish, is another high-context language, where the meaning of a word or sentence changes depending on context. Like Ismo's comedy routine, where he presents the Swiss army knife of the Finnish language, "no niin". Even though there is no standard pitch accent, the melody of the word depending on context in the routine changes... ruclips.net/video/9EWMlCusxjQ/видео.html How many can you figure out? (Turn CC on).
That Finnish expression is actually how my interest in the Japanese language got started, because I just couldn't seem to stop twitching every time I heard "Nani" in an anime... Also, I've seen a Japanese RUclipsr in Finland, Gen Takagi, have a lot of fun with the expression XD.
Another classic is the sentence "kuusi palaa", which can have 9 different meanings depending on context, and that *without* pitch accents. Just google "finnish lesson 1 kuusi palaa".
Being attentive to context and pitch accent or "sentence melody" is a good thing in other languages than Japanese and Finnish as well, there are a lot of clues you can get by being attentive to those. Though anime dubs tend to become ruined, because the dub sounds so "flat" in melody compared to the original Japanse...
That's just intonation which occurs in basically any language. An actual pitch accent denotes lexical information which is different (but of course Japanese and other pitch accent languages generally also have intonational pitch).
@@seneca983 I know. But learning to recognize and identify intonation patterns also helps with ones pitch accent recognition and identification, and vice versa.
Like, I know Ismo uses intonation in his skit to convey emotional context, the difference to Japanese and other pitch accent languagess is that it conveys lexical information.
And recognizing both in *any* language is a good skill to have under your belt, IMHO.
“The thing you watch on a daily basis”
Damn, he got me good.
I feel called out
I mean, in spanish we have a lot of accents all around the world, even verb forms and pronouns and we understand each other
Yo, in English accent is a different thing, when Americans learn Spanish they call it tilde
I agree in a lot of south american countries instead of saying hola we say buenas but people from spain still understand it
@@demianlugo7677 I'm not talking about written accents, but speaking accents, and dialects, even the phrase structures are different from region to region
@@Yamabi_Kaze pitch accent in Japanese is different to regional accents. It has more to do with which syllables have a raised pitch. In Spanish we have similar rules.
@@demianlugo7677 there's tilde and accent. Two different things (though they share words in spanish).
Your opinion is very close to what Matt Vs Japan suggests. Would be interesting if you do a collab with him or Dogen and discuss these topics.
By the way, as you may know, the person you were referring to (George Trombley, creator of the Japanese From Zero textbooks) partially changed his opinion after debating Matt Vs Japan. He no longer thinks pitch accent is stupid and intends to study it himself.
True. It's interesting. I am reading a book on it now.
@@koreanfromzero It's the man himself! I really enjoy your videos. Recently I rediscovered your "Adventures in Asia" channel and binged a bunch of videos. The one in Osaka hit me hard because Osaka is like my second home but it's been several years since I've been there.
4:30 one of my biggest frustrations with the one semester I took of Japanese at my university was that the teacher was very much against using any words or grammar that were not covered in the class. This was particularly annoying since the pace of the class was really slow compared to the pace I was learning Japanese during my self-study before signing up for the class. Fortunately, the teachers at my Japanese University during my study abroad were perfectly happy with me going above and beyond the content of the class so long as I at least included what we had learned in my assignments. On the subject of pitch accent, the teacher for my grammar class did a short lesson on pitch accent one time and I simply could not hear the difference between the different pitch patterns at the time, so that one lesson just made me want nothing to do with it since it seemed so nuanced and difficult. I think the biggest problem with pitch accent is that most people don't know how to present it in a way that won't scare off students. After spending a little time learning the basic pitch patterns and using tools recommended by Dougen and Matt vs. Japan to train my ability to recognize the different patterns when I hear them, I don't find pitch accent itself to be terribly difficult to learn, although learning all of the various advanced rules is a different story.
My classes are the same. Most of us have incredibly limited vocabulary and the exercises also use the most basic vocabulary. Depends on the teacher but when we use something not covered we sometimes get points taken too which is very frustrating
Edit: one prof mentioned pitch accent briefly then told is we will Pick up a good one when we listen to a lot of Japanese and done with the conversation lol
Do you reckon it would've helped if the teacher had said something along the lines of "you won't get it immediately, but that's okay. For now, just be aware of its existence. You'll get used to it in time"?
Yuta: "Hentai"
Me in my head "Lowkey sounded like Usseewa"
That song is such a vibe
Banger
I love that song ha
what thoes ussewa mean is it the same world as usseewa ?
@@iordacheemanuel8965 shut up but in a rude way
Plot twist: All videos that Yuta makes now are just long ads for his Japanese course
Astronaut pointing a gun at another astronaut: they always have been.
@ assasination classroom vibe mix AIUEO john madden
As a native Spanish speaker, I feel like I'll have an easier time with this because our language also uses accents, we even mark it in some words, so hopefully I'll learn Japanese pitch accent intuitively.
No sabía que Yuta hablaba Español! -Para conocer chicas guapas- Para hacer amigos eh? Ya veo... 😂
It's true that native speakers are usually not aware of how their languages work. Even if it's as simple things as vowel harmony and alternating consonants in my language. And they do that simple mistakes even in high school.
Learning pitch accent in Japanese kinda reminds me of learning a regional Spanish accent/dialect. Doing either one isn't extremely important for second language speakers, but they help a ton with making you sound like a native speaker.
A friend from Osaka of mine said that the problem with pitch accent is that the pitches are different depending on the dialect and often completely opposite
I would say yes, I don't know a lot of Japanese but even I can notice the difference now that I spend more time analyzing how things are said. It also helps me enjoy humor that I might not have understood before.
You'll find the "standard English" for the country you are in by watching the news. Each country has its own accent and words, but if you listen to the news or just TV in general you get a very bland version of that countries English (unless the presenter, or actor has a very thick accent or playing a character with a regional accent). BBC News English is very close to "Queen's English", and you will not hear "cockney" English even though that is more likely the closest you'll every get to a true historic English. Another place to hear a very standard English is in music where we bring in pitch and set beats. Quiet often the singer's accent will disappear completely.
dougen in control room: "okay, that`s for today, you can have your meal."
When I learned Japanese at a German uni from a Japanese teacher, she was always very keen on teaching us the correct pitch accent. I am really grateful she was like that because now I feel more confident in actually speaking Japanese. That might be because of my perfectionism but the German language also works via pitch accent. For example umFAHREN means to drive around something, but UMfahren means to drive straight over/through something without remorse.
My native language is german and I had no idea lol Just shows that natives don't even know these things most of the time
@@coratisongames This is the type of thing that's learned instinctively so most native speakers don't even realize it unless it's a language where the writing makes pitch clear through diacritics and such.
I think German, just like English, has stressed syllables, louder or longer, which you showed well with the caps, rather than pitch accents, as is the case with Japanese where most syllables are the same length and take on a melodious approach. But linking the two definitly helps with learning either language, French for example doesn't have much stressed syllables, so it can be difficult to hear pitches and stresses in other languages when your native language is French (from France at least) !
German, and all the other Germanic languages, have strong stress, not a pitch accent.
@@cephalosjr.1835 Just learnt that Swedish has pitch accents although it is a Germanic language ! The more you know :)
Yuta: lo hablo para conocer chicas guap... gente buena y hacer amigos
Me: SHooked
What did he say? Can you translate please? 🙏
@@SeraYagami I speak Spanish to meet hot gir.. meet good people and make friends 😭
@@Angiieread OMG Yuta-senseiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii xD
Thanks for the translation! ^.^
when does he say this ?
@@dereklol8310 @16:15
Wow! This was the most reasonable argument/discussion on the topic that I have heard! You pretty much agree exactly with Matt vs Japan on this one.
I agree. It was very reasonable.
What I like about spanish is that we have rules for this. For example, if you read papa or papá. You immediately know how to read them.
With the "great" example, there's also a low-high-low and elongated way of pronouncing it, indicating sarcasm (grEhht). I've always found it funny studying Japanese when teachers insist English has no pitch accent, when it does. Not in the same manner as in Japanese, but it's definitely there.
Yuta: my Spanish is not even close to being fluent “lo hablo para conocer chicas guap- gente buena y hacer amigos”
Me a Spanish speaker: 😲
True🤣🤣
Isn't that correct?!
Estoy en shock. Embuste. Ya sabía que él sabe Español. XD Hace mucho tiempo él había hecho un video de él intentando hablar con personas en Español en (si no me falla la memoria) México.
when Yuta spoke Spanish, I pulled a Spanish version of "おぉ、日本語は上手です"
@@miwwie1504 It was great, even as a foreign language joke he pulled it off clean.
Wow que buen español Yuta, ojalá encuentres muchas chicas guapas 😎
that subscribe messages built into an example was a smooth criminal
For years, my favorite part of Yuta’s videos has been how he promotes his email group. Normally for most people it’d be annoying, but I find it funny how he can twist and turn the topic and find a way to fit his lessons in.
I’m being genuine, it’s a good tactic and he does it well.
Wait, Is he wearing AOT shirt?
Yeah
It's call an AOT-shirt 😏😎
Yuta knows more Spanish than I do, and I'm half Mexican in Southern California.
I'm always floored by just how intelligent you are. You really have an awesome way of communicating ideas and it makes you a really informative and interesting teacher! Thank you for the content(:
I want to learn pitch accent to be able to seem more willing to learn Japanese but to me its really difficult to change how I've learnt to pronounce a word so what I do is when I see a new word I go onto a video of someone pronouncing it and replicate it over and over so that I can pronounce it correctly but I still mess up with pitch accent a lot
can you nail the phonems tho? pronunciaton isn't only about pitch accent
"Let me introduce you to this special word, "変態", which actually just means pervert and doesn't mean the thing you watch on a daily basis."
Damn, how did he know?
English has several words that sound similar but mean different things, and understanding them is context based, so I would imagine that it is very much the same in Japanese. No one would surely be confused about eating with a pair of bridges... or driving across chopsticks. There has been an odd debate lately over the absolute necessity of pitch accents (between non-Japanese teachers) and why it is the most important thing ever. There has been this mindset of "Perfect Japanese" that does more harm than good.
It's also worth noting that yes, we would never correct you on your language skills, we would just correct each other. Because English speakers can't stand not being able to correct each other over everything, and now that Pitch Accent is all the rage, we have something new to be dogmatic about.
The argument isn’t about why it’s the most important thing ever nor is it about acquiring “Perfect Japanese”. It’s about why you should do at least the bare minimum to have a grasp of pitch in order to hear it when you’re listening to Japanese because even the bare minimum will have large benefits in your overall ability.
I was first made aware of the existence of pitch accent after having studied Japanese for nine years while watching a Dougen video. None of my teachers in that time ever mentioned it once. The idea that I would have to relearn the pronunciation of every single word was absolutely horrifying to me. I thought I spoke I Japanese with a pretty good accent. I had bragged about it. This threw into question everything I had ever believed about my ability in speaking Japanese. Three years later I still don't have a good answer. I still don't know if I sound like an idiot when I'm speaking Japanese or not. I passed the N1 and I still don't know pitch accent. I'm a translator and I don't know pitch accent. Maybe I picked it up naturally from the time I spend living in Japan. Maybe I didn't. This horrifies me.
"Great" in a dropping tone in English is a way of sarcastically saying something is bad.
Nice to see a native Japanese speaker/youtuber/teacher make a video on this topic after the recent debate's between Matt, George, and Dogen!
You begin by speaking about how intonation can change the meaning of a word in Japanese but then go on to compare it to English intonations and then use an "inflection" as your example. Inflections turn words into questions. I've heard Japanese speakers use this while dropping "desu ka" as well.
In English we do have many words that are spelled the same but have different meanings through context and also through pronunciation. Minute (min-net) and Minute (My-new-t) is a good example. They have the exact same spelling but the former pronunciation is a measurement of time while the latter describes something very small.
Perhaps examples like this can help people better understand why intonation and pronunciation is important
I think Yuta is right on the money though, the two pronunciation of minute essentially stems from which syllables are being stressed. With the former, we stressed the first, while for the latter we stressed on the second. And Yuta had already established earlier on that Japanese language does not have stressed syllables
@@playmakersmusic I'm not saying he's wrong or that you are either but intonation works differently in English than it does in Japanese. In Japanese it can change the meaning of a word while in English intonation it is used more in expressing our mental state (we're questioning, expressing uncertainty or being definite etc) and it doesn't alter the meaning of the words itself. So in this respect I think Japanese intonation is more comparable to stressed syllables in English.
@@remanuel8396 Fair enough, I get what you mean! Cheers!
At the beginning you say that we understand Japanese people when they speak terrible English, but this isn't really the case. I often get thrown a loop when Japanese people mispronounce English words by saying them with hiragana, or they remove stress from words. This is also ignoring the sentence stress differences. When I first came to Japan I found it really hard to understand Japanese people, because they spoke the whole sentence with no stress, or stress on every word. Stress on no words means you can't hear it as it's too quiet, and on every word is really confusing for native speakers if it's not just a simple sentence, as it's essentially telling us to listen to every word, and that's too much information.
Plus they add extra syllables to every word that ends in a consonant. So there is extra information there that shouldn't be there and you have to do a double take!
The biggest problem with pitch accent is how much emphasis was put on it in recent years. Most other aspects of the language are more important, if you can't tell 会社 and 社会 apart, have no idea which particle to put where or call everyone お前, that's way worse than not having correct pitch. However, I do agree that you *absolutely* should know that it exists (for example, by watching Dogen's 10 minute primer), so that you are able to consciously pick up on it. I think making one's own accent as non-annoying as possible is an important goal, out of respect to native speakers, but it's still of minor importance.
私の意見なんですけど、日本語には高低アクセントの基本は必修です。ですので、殆どの先生達よりそれが教わらないことはとても大変だと考えています。
日本語の発音には色々な部分があります。イントネーション、アクセント、母音の長さなどです。得意な発音をできるように、それぞれの部分の基本を学ぶことが必要だということは殆どの人は「言わずと知れたこと」と言うかも知れません。必ずしも、そういう基本の知識を受け取ることは発音が訛らないようにするはずだとは限らないんですけど、大体分かりやすい、綺麗、紛らわしくもないようにするものです。
アクセントという部分は母音の長さなどと比べても、同じ程重要です。なぜなら、アクセントによって言葉の意味が違ったり、発音が分かりやすいかやすくないかになったり、相手に聴き取りやすいかやすくないかになったりするのですから。自分が話せるようだけではなく、相手に分かりやすく聴き取りやすくなるようにも人は言語を学習しています。ですので、なぜ人はアクセントが不必要だと考えているか私にて理解できません。
I thought this is simply about language, but it was a nice discussion about the phylosophy of learning a new language. Thanks!
This is a tough thing. While I can definitely hear them, I can't replicate them at all. I'm one of those folks who can't even sing a verse of the easiest songs. Voice control can of course be practiced.... but the question is why bother? From my experience, Japanese is a highly contextual language where majority of native speakers will opt to mind read you instead and will use the words only as a rough guideline... so far this has proven to be the truth for the most part (but you're expected to mind read as well :D) I mean, if you're already talented at voice replication/singing/music - yes by all means, check this one off your list too, it will probably happen automatically as you practice speaking in general - but if you're terrible at voice control, focusing on this while the language itself is a nightmare to learn would just make you lose motivation.
Just yesterday I spoke with a friend who kept correcting me about 玉 and たまたま 's たま and while I could perfectly hear the pitch difference I just couldn't replicate it to the extent she'd say 'it's good now'. Countless examples pop up in my head, but most of the time, unlike Chinese where you completely change everything and can mess up big time - in Japanese people will actually understand you without any issues.
learning japanese is so hard, and big progress needs a lot of time. grammar, particle, KANJI, dialect and now pitch accent. And good learning material in german is rare too.
learning english is thousand times more easier than this.
It's only easy because it's everywhere.
Well isn't English derived from German historically? Would make sense it wouldn't be too difficult coming from German
当たり前でしょう
I think mastering these accents is important if you want to sound natural. Chinese language also has tones for every character (漢字). Many foreigners sound foreign because they don't master the correct tones.
I still can't comprehend how Yuta can say all those jokes with a straight face.
God, this concept was totally lost on me as a kid when it came to Japanese, cause the only people I had to speak Japanese with were my grandma and like one kid in high school. And it's not like we ever talked about anything complicated or for very long. It was a weird mix of that and Korean too, so my pitch for both languages was pretty messed up for a while. So it's good that I get to learn this at least now. What I've had to do for a while is to just watch talk shows and street interviews cause other than the two people in my life, that was the only way I could ever hear someone speak everyday Japanese.
The community college Japanese class did not mention pitch accents. Fortunately, the books & websites I use for self-study do.
Regarding pitch accents, I had purchased a vegan food item in a Chinese supermarket. My Taiwanese boss didn't understand my pronunciation of the food's name, so I repeated the name, changing pitch on different syllables, until he recognized the word. It made me appreciate the importance of pitch.
however, in chinese it makes a much greater difference than in japanese
Please do a video of why so many people simp over Saya chan (Saya Hiyama).
You perfectly captured a lot of my thoughts on pitch accent during the recent RUclips debates! All of the illogical arguments people make, like different dialects, Japanese people don't talk about it, Japanese people never correct you...
Hopefully it helps convince people when it's coming from a native Japanese speaker. Great job!
What's so illogical about them? If the Japanese themselves don't care about it and are all over the place with it themselves why should we care? There are plenty of Native Japanese teachers of Japanese who say it's worthless for foreigners to learn, Yuta is not the final word concerning the topic. It's also ironic how Yuta with a THICK accent in English is lecturing us on the importance of have near perfect accent-less speech in order to be good at Japanese.
my Japanese girlfriend always says ピッチトーン
I've never heard anyone else call it that xD
I like how you used the same example Pekora did for pitch accent.
ikr 😂😂 i had a feeling yuta was referencing a certain someone when he used that example
毎回のビデオで2回ぐらい繰り返される、"I will teach you.....subscribe" というフレーズ、耳タコになってしまいました。
もうちょっと控えめな告知方法でもいいのでは?
I'd say it differs greatly in other languages. 'Pitch accent' in English is more about inflection; adding intent or emotion to existing words.
Sadly there isn't a way to pronounce 'there, their, and they're' to determine their different meanings.
2:10
Just some thoughts, its like having a conversation in Filipino with a friend that does not speak Filipino.
---
Sentence: The weather is awful.
Correct: Ang "sama" (bad) ng panahon.
Incorrect: Ang "samaa" (join) ng panahon...
I would understand what they meant, and I would reiterate my friend's accent for their incorrect wording.
I really like pitch accent and every time I hear a new word, I practice the pitch accent. Many people said to me that pitch accent is not important but I still believe it's pretty useful and helps you to improve your pronunciation and communicate your thoughts better :3
When he started talking about other regions and dialects i IMMEDIATELY thought about Sasha. Lo and behold 2 min later he mentions her lmaooooooo
I've been learning japanese for a year, why has NOBODY ever told me that Japanese has pitch accents before? I found it interesting how many words sounded the same way and were differenced only by their kanji, and thought it would make them harder to tell apart on a spoken conversation. This answers that question. A similar thing happens in Spanish, where words that contain the same letters in the same order are differenced by which syllable you stress.
same in filipino
baka-cow
baKA-might
they are both same words but different situation
To be honest, I don't like when language teachers "baby" their students. When I was learning Chinese ( A language with a heavy emphasis on tone) she never once corrected us on our pronunciation. So when I went to China, my Chinese was barely even understandable. Languages should not watered down for the sake of keeping students in the classroom. It does more harm than good. ):
As a native Mandarin speaker, I assume the Chinese dialect that you learn is Mandarin. Actually, if you have been to different parts of China, you will notice that even in different parts of China, the pronunciation slightly differs. On the North(Beijing), you'll find that the pronunciation is sharper and towards the South(Fujian, Canton, etc.) the pronunciation is softer. I think maybe because your teacher is basing it off on the region, he/she came from.
Nah man teacher just sucks
@@playmakersmusic I understand that . However, we were learning putonghua so there was no emphasis on dialect. Having said that, I think I was just speaking gibberish.
@@cahallo5964 pretty much
How are people supposed to learn pitch accent though? Please tell me just learning about the patterns and listening for it is enough, because I would rather die than grind through Dogen’s 100+ video course, or try and read a dry-ass textbook explaining every detail, or put the pitch accent of a word on all my flashcards.
Personally I’ve noticed that I use the correct pitch accent for words I’ve heard a million times before, like 学校. So I’m really hoping that by continuing to listen to a lot of Japanese I’ll naturally learn the pitch accent for all the words.
Expected to learn about Pitch Accent
Got a music class instead, now that's multi-tasking
Thanks for another informative video!
I've watched so many animes in Japanese and still can't get the accent.
完全な音痴です
When i learn any new vocabulary, i always try to listen to the way it sounds. Pitch accent is almost never the priority of what i listen for, but most times i absorb it subconsciously anyway. I’ve always thought of it in a very similar way to stress accent in english, which is often also paired with pitch in the way i speak, so to me it’s not that hard of a concept to take in.
Of course it's not worth it. Tired of those gatekeepers who are making things uselessly complicated.
Hey, for the example at 1:50, when I say "uh-huh" with the accent on the downstep (usually with the "huh" italicized in writing), the meaning is really closer to "I kind of doubt what you're saying, but please do go on..."
This is different from the normal "uh-huh," which is a good demonstration of how pitch in English is used to convey emotion. Usually a deliberately flattened pitch, for example, conveys sarcasm
Yeah I expected that. I thought he would talk about like a suspicious
"Uh-HUuuh" 🤔 kidna thing. Like when you're doubtful but listening.
"Hentai. It just means pervert. It doesn't mean the thing you watch on a daily basis" lol Yuta burning us
I've enjoyed Japanese media for a decade and have not noticed that the people that speak it uses pitch accent outside of News Anchors, Kizuna Ai, and when I use website dictionaries like Jisho.
Well if I'm going to converse in Japanese I'd like for restaurant staff to stop giving me bridges
何デモハ理解シナクテモイイ。理解スベキ部分ダケ。
Cap? Whats the meaning?
@@skytherk.5359 2:23 "We don't have to understand everything. We just have to understand what we need to understand."
@@zeynep-ho9kv thanks.. I had problems with kanji.
@@skytherk.5359 理解 りかい (understand) and 部分 ぶぶん (part or piece of)
You guys are awesome! Thank you all for help!
This dude knows how to persuade people properly.
Japan has to send this guy to Russia right now, and tell Putin not to invade somewhere lol
I'm so glad you made this video. It basically summed up my position better than I ever could.
I think pitch accent is important. Problem is I am too stupid or deaf or something. I just can't hear it and can't copy it. 😕
The only Japanese intonation I can tell is whenever my friends say 「はい」.
And when I get the half hearted はい, I'm like ugh.... Hahaha.
i feel like, pitch accent might not make sense logistically in japanese as many people will bring their accent from their native language unintentially anyways, which will kind of undermine the whole point of learning it. plus context kind of fills the void of not understand what hashi im talking about
I'm sure Yuta was looking at that vtuber just with research proposes.
For sure
unless there is something heNTAI
"Japanese people don't talk about pitch accent"
well yeah, it's not like stress accent is a day to day conversation topic for english speakers
To me its absolutely clear that pitch accent is very important when speaking japanese. The basic 'tones' from the japanese alphabet are so precise that you cannot ignore pitch accent if you want to sound anywhere near a real japanese.
That example with Hashi really says it all.
I can tell you that I could not hear the difference between the two different "Kizunai".
16:15 I admit, you caught off guard there! HAHAHAHA
Keep up the good work, man! 💪
7:33 ok so basically when you say hentai you gotta hum the opening bass riff to cowboy bepop ok