how can I know the pitch of a new word?

6 comments

1. You can look up the word you’d like to know the pitch of using eg. [jotoba.com](https://jotoba.com)

2. Best not to overthink this. Especially when learning Japanese, use a flat intonation. “Hashi” is bridge and chopstick and the sound is subtly different (but significant to a native’s ears). However you will never have a situation where one gets confused by the other. You will go down a rabbit hole analyzing every word when the great thing about Japanese is it’s relative simplicity of intonation. I get that good habits start early and there may be exceptions to this. But there are so many other things that you have to keep in mind when speaking Japanese that getting caught on this may hold you back. Just my opinion.

3. I never paid this crap any attention when I spoke. Unless you’re breaking out into different pitches like you’re an opera singer it’s best to ignore this, you’re not going to consciously be able to memorize and retain all this information. It’s something that comes from subconsciously learning it and to be honest, with accents and dialects there’s probably exceptions to every pitch rule.

4. While you can look it up in some dictionaries (Shinmeikai Kokugo dictionary, etc), honestly, looking up the individual pitch accents of words isn’t the best way to practice it. You want to instead increase your overall pitch accent ability and awareness by doing something like ondoku training. Then, once your pitch accent is generally pretty good, you can start targeting your problem areas, maybe with a native teacher, and focus on them more specifically.

5. This is why I watch Japanese TV and movies. And listen to a lot of Japanese music. You need to listen carefully to learn pitch.

6. I highly recommend Japanese linguist dogen on YouTube for pitch work