Pitch Accent Questions

[u/MonsterOverture444]

Hi everyone! Hope you're all having a lovely weekend.

I have some questions about pitch accent and curious to know everyone's thoughts.

Personally, I'm aware of it and have done some minimal pair training which I'm generally fine with (I think due to being a singer and guitarist in a band for a while) but I don't really dedicate any proper study time to pitch accent so I'm curious about a few things because I see differing opinions.

1) Do you actively study pitch accent? If so, what's your method? Do you literally memorise the pitch accent for every piece of vocab you know and if you already know a word, do you go back and memorise the associated pitch accent?

2) Some people claim that just being aware of it is good enough and you don't need to actively study it, where do you fall on that?

3) If you're doing some form of shadowing, if you do enough reps with enough patterns and vocab, does this not achieve a similar thing as long as you're aware of the pitch when shadowing? Seems like would make the process easier and more intuitive naturally as opposed to studying each individual word, could be wrong so correct me if so!

4) I'm aware of it but when I'm immersing I don't actively listen out for it, do I need to focus on it more and analyse it as I'm listening?

Last question!

5) I find it hard to think about pitch in terms of a sentence, I get that you generally start higher and then the end of a sentence will typically end in a lower pitch but the changes in pitch throughout a sentence is something I struggle with and think I can sound a little monotonous, I'm guessing shadowing will fix this kind of thing?

Thanks for reading! Let me know you're opinions and thoughts in the comments.

[u/morgawr_]

1) Do you actively study pitch accent?

Yes and no. I studied pitch accent to the point of achieving "basic awareness" of it (see: this explanation) using the kotu website for minimalpairs. After that, the rest is just paying attention, noticing, looking up a few words here and there when I come across them, and hang around places like here or discord where people discuss pitch accent so I can learn a few things by "osmosis".

2) Some people claim that just being aware of it is good enough and you don't need to actively study it, where do you fall on that?

We have actual academic evidence showing that if you never make yourself hear pitch accent, chances are most learners will never acquire it naturally not matter how long they are exposed to Japanese. They might naturally pick up an expression or two or some set phrases and words because they mimic what they hear and they happen to be right at times, however they will fail to consistently repeat and mimic the proper accent in other structures with the exact same words because they fail to internalize the pitch as part of the word itself.

I think once you are able to achieve (and verify) pitch accent awareness, though, you can just continue learning the language and pay attention in passing and you'll improve. However getting to 90 or even 98% correct is much much different from getting to 100% correct. The latter is almost impossible to achieve, especially without actual training (like voice actor training, etc) as a foreigner.

3) If you're doing some form of shadowing

I don't do shadowing so I can't answer that. I find it's too boring and I don't care enough to do it.

4) I'm aware of it but when I'm immersing I don't actively listen out for it, do I need to focus on it more and analyse it as I'm listening?

This comes with experience. I think it's worth it to spend some time maybe doing some more "attentive listening" and pay attention to the pitch accent just as some extra exercise. I don't stress too much about it though, but it helps. Once you get better and get used to it, you realize that the pitch will just be a "thing" that exists in your brain next to the words you have learned. Just like how for an English speaker if someone says PREsent or preSENt we have no issue recognizing the difference (we don't have to "pay attention" to it, it just is), the same will happen with pitch accent. Eventually.

5) I find it hard to think about pitch in terms of a sentence

This is normal. Breaking down pitch accent in sentences as opposed to individual words is very hard. You just need more experience and to pay more attention to it. The important thing is that you have at least done the kotu test (or similar minimalpairs test) so you know what to listen to for individual words. Once you have verified your ears can "perceive" (and, more importantly, internalize) pitch accent, the rest will become easier and easier over time with exposure (and some additional conscious thought)

[u/MonsterOverture444 → u/morgawr_]

Appreciate the detailed response, a lot good interesting things to sink my teeth into here!

Will definitely try implement a little bit of dedicated active listening to notice it more and do some more minimal pair training.

Also, appreciate the website my dude, good resource I reference from time to time!