You’ll probably be understood despite wrong pitch accent, but you’ll sound mental and be considered to have a bad accent and harder to understand.
If you can’t learn to hear and reproduce pitch accent, your tone and prosody is probably “off” in other ways as well.
“Is it important to sound as close to native as possible?” Might be another way to ask this question. And the answer is obviously “yes.”
Best to learn it. And since there’s regional variation, beat to pick one style and use it consistently.
As important as using the correct kanji.
Yes, it’s integral to what makes the language a language. It’s different but kind of similar in a way, like how English has intonation which is important.
It depends on what is your level.
For most beginners/intermediates, it’s not really NEEDED, and will slow down your learning.
If you’re already fluent and want to take the extra step, by all means. It won’t be harmful.
As a non-native English speaker, I can tell you that trying to “sound native” too soon will only harm your learning and create insecurities.
Japanese teacher here. 100 percent for sure. For example Ame means Rain and Candy. People recognize the word from the pitch accent.
I’d say it helps, but at the same time it’s the last concern. I’m a native so I can’t say for the perspective of learners though.
Like speaking English with accent in wrong places, it’s surprisingly hard for natives to pick up the word once it’s off. But it’s very much workable on listener’s end. Homonyms ([such like this one mentioned elsewhere](https://www.reddit.com/r/japanese/comments/y6whqc/comment/iss9tzj/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)) is usually easy to guess from the context too. Imagine the situation where I mispronounce desert like dessert, and that may sound nasty or confusing to your ear, but you should be able to work on your end as a native listener in the real conversational situations.
The real deal when it comes to the reading is the articulations (rather than tones), which is way harder for natives to compensate in many situations, because it can change a word into completely different one. Someone had a great comprehensible list, but some of them were double consonants and ん etc (edit: added in the edit), which doesn’t seem important from the perspective of English speakers for example, although it significantly changes the way natives hear them. (For example, it’s like me saying ‘rhyme’ in place of ‘lime’. They’re identical to me as far as the sound goes, but not for natives, at all.) Although I should be able to compensate those better as someone who also understand English, these features really throw me off to the great annoyance of learners. Good thing is these features are way more straightforward to learn as there are patterns to follow, whereas pitch patterns are not quite like so.
I heard this from the other advanced learner and I’m recommending my gf to follow this. At one point, while she still gets accenting in wrong places, I noticed that my ear takes it more as Japanese of different dialect rather than unfamiliar sound, therefore minimum overhead on listening effort – meaning smoother convo! So I can approve that pitch-accenting is not as important as many other features.
Edit: Note that different dialects in Japan has different pitch-accenting, notably that of Kansai region compared to the ones spoken in Tokyo (which is pretty much the basis of textbook Standard Japanese). Once any natives go across the region, we do deal with pitch-accenting compensation to some extent. Whereas, for articulations, there aren’t many variety across the dialects.
* Ignore elongated vowels * Ignore doubled consonants * Use more than the five vowel sounds in Japanese * Use English stress accent on words * Use English intonation patterns/rhythms on sentences * Directly translate idiomatic speech * Swap sounds at consonant for consonant or vowel for vowel rather mora for mora * Pay insufficient attention to transitivity
Some of this is not about pronunciation (I don’t remember this comment’s context – I think this author was trying to make a point that pitch-accenting by itself won’t help much at fluency), but all of these help immensely for Japanese natives to pick up on it naturally.
I would say it’s really important so you don’t sy the wrong thing when you actually wante to say something else.
I’ve heard the word for tank and car wash has the same pronounciation but the picth is different
in my experience, … yes? maybe? I’ve never been explicitly taught it beyond discussing curios like “ame”, “hashi”, “kumo”, and I’ve never come across a situation where I’ve been misunderstood for *just* the pitch accent. But it’s part of learning the language and it will make you sound more natural.
You’ll pick up good pitch and tonality naturally as long as you have frequent auditory input. It’s not really something you’ll need to go out of your way to study.
In my experience it’s not something you need to consciously focus on as long as you learn with audio
At a bare minimum, I think it’s worth taking some time to get a basic familiarity with the pitch accent. Listen to some audio examples so you can learn to differentiate pitches by ear, practice speaking a few words with correct pitches, and study the pronunciation for a handful of words. You could probably do all of this in a few hours—it’s doesn’t need to be a huge undertaking.
After you learn the basics, work on pitch accent as needed. You may find that you improve naturally through listening and conversation, or you may find that it’s something you need to actively work on.
Are there actual guides on how to pick it up or is it all irregular and by word/accent basis?
I think of something like Mandarin where pitch is crucial, so learning material tries to break it down. But for some reason in Japanese it’s like an unwritten rule that there are accents that are held over your head to exert some random air of superiority lol. (Not actually, but it feels that way sometimes)
Seems like you should just try to copy what you hear. If someone catches you on a word and corrects you, no big deal. Besides accents vary. At a store was once asked by a Cajun where he could find some par-TEE-cle board. Took a few tries for me to catch he meant particle board.
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You’ll probably be understood despite wrong pitch accent, but you’ll sound mental and be considered to have a bad accent and harder to understand.
If you can’t learn to hear and reproduce pitch accent, your tone and prosody is probably “off” in other ways as well.
“Is it important to sound as close to native as possible?” Might be another way to ask this question. And the answer is obviously “yes.”
Best to learn it. And since there’s regional variation, beat to pick one style and use it consistently.
As important as using the correct kanji.
Yes, it’s integral to what makes the language a language. It’s different but kind of similar in a way, like how English has intonation which is important.
It depends on what is your level.
For most beginners/intermediates, it’s not really NEEDED, and will slow down your learning.
If you’re already fluent and want to take the extra step, by all means. It won’t be harmful.
As a non-native English speaker, I can tell you that trying to “sound native” too soon will only harm your learning and create insecurities.
Japanese teacher here. 100 percent for sure. For example Ame means Rain and Candy. People recognize the word from the pitch accent.
I’d say it helps, but at the same time it’s the last concern. I’m a native so I can’t say for the perspective of learners though.
Like speaking English with accent in wrong places, it’s surprisingly hard for natives to pick up the word once it’s off. But it’s very much workable on listener’s end. Homonyms ([such like this one mentioned elsewhere](https://www.reddit.com/r/japanese/comments/y6whqc/comment/iss9tzj/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)) is usually easy to guess from the context too. Imagine the situation where I mispronounce desert like dessert, and that may sound nasty or confusing to your ear, but you should be able to work on your end as a native listener in the real conversational situations.
The real deal when it comes to the reading is the articulations (rather than tones), which is way harder for natives to compensate in many situations, because it can change a word into completely different one. Someone had a great comprehensible list, but some of them were double consonants and ん etc (edit: added in the edit), which doesn’t seem important from the perspective of English speakers for example, although it significantly changes the way natives hear them. (For example, it’s like me saying ‘rhyme’ in place of ‘lime’. They’re identical to me as far as the sound goes, but not for natives, at all.) Although I should be able to compensate those better as someone who also understand English, these features really throw me off to the great annoyance of learners. Good thing is these features are way more straightforward to learn as there are patterns to follow, whereas pitch patterns are not quite like so.
I heard this from the other advanced learner and I’m recommending my gf to follow this. At one point, while she still gets accenting in wrong places, I noticed that my ear takes it more as Japanese of different dialect rather than unfamiliar sound, therefore minimum overhead on listening effort – meaning smoother convo! So I can approve that pitch-accenting is not as important as many other features.
Edit: Note that different dialects in Japan has different pitch-accenting, notably that of Kansai region compared to the ones spoken in Tokyo (which is pretty much the basis of textbook Standard Japanese). Once any natives go across the region, we do deal with pitch-accenting compensation to some extent. Whereas, for articulations, there aren’t many variety across the dialects.
Edit: the list ([link is here](https://www.reddit.com/r/undefined/comments/gr4vuj/comment/fryibgx/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) but it’s dead – I suppose it’s deleted.) It lists tendency for English speakers as:
* Ignore elongated vowels
* Ignore doubled consonants
* Use more than the five vowel sounds in Japanese
* Use English stress accent on words
* Use English intonation patterns/rhythms on sentences
* Directly translate idiomatic speech
* Swap sounds at consonant for consonant or vowel for vowel rather mora for mora
* Pay insufficient attention to transitivity
Some of this is not about pronunciation (I don’t remember this comment’s context – I think this author was trying to make a point that pitch-accenting by itself won’t help much at fluency), but all of these help immensely for Japanese natives to pick up on it naturally.
I would say it’s really important so you don’t sy the wrong thing when you actually wante to say something else.
I’ve heard the word for tank and car wash has the same pronounciation but the picth is different
in my experience, … yes? maybe? I’ve never been explicitly taught it beyond discussing curios like “ame”, “hashi”, “kumo”, and I’ve never come across a situation where I’ve been misunderstood for *just* the pitch accent. But it’s part of learning the language and it will make you sound more natural.
You’ll pick up good pitch and tonality naturally as long as you have frequent auditory input. It’s not really something you’ll need to go out of your way to study.
In my experience it’s not something you need to consciously focus on as long as you learn with audio
At a bare minimum, I think it’s worth taking some time to get a basic familiarity with the pitch accent. Listen to some audio examples so you can learn to differentiate pitches by ear, practice speaking a few words with correct pitches, and study the pronunciation for a handful of words. You could probably do all of this in a few hours—it’s doesn’t need to be a huge undertaking.
After you learn the basics, work on pitch accent as needed. You may find that you improve naturally through listening and conversation, or you may find that it’s something you need to actively work on.
Are there actual guides on how to pick it up or is it all irregular and by word/accent basis?
I think of something like Mandarin where pitch is crucial, so learning material tries to break it down. But for some reason in Japanese it’s like an unwritten rule that there are accents that are held over your head to exert some random air of superiority lol. (Not actually, but it feels that way sometimes)
Seems like you should just try to copy what you hear. If someone catches you on a word and corrects you, no big deal. Besides accents vary. At a store was once asked by a Cajun where he could find some par-TEE-cle board. Took a few tries for me to catch he meant particle board.