Is there a way to add the pitch-accent-graph from Yomichan to old cards (not made by Yomichan) without totally remaking them?
I’d love to update all my cards, but that field seems unselectable, even if you make a new card and copy and paste the fields.
Alternatively, is there a way to copy a card’s review information (i.e. the Info when you right-click a card) to another card to keep the review state?
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Thanks in advance
3 comments
There are Anki add-ons that add pitch accent in bulk to all cards. Just search the add-on page.
Maybe found an answer to my own question.
It’s not an easy way to copy but, the pitch graphs are HTML and there’s a button to expand hidden HTML code on each field. Just have to copy and paste that HTML code to the same HTML field in another card.
If there’s an easier solution, that would still be helpful!
OK, slight gripe, please stop obsessing over pitch accent. You don’t need to learn it, and you don’t gain anything from learning it.
Seriously. [Pitch accent isn’t consistent across Japan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_pitch_accent#/media/File:Japanese_pitch_accent_map_-en.png). It’s barely consistent within Kanto, which is supposed to have heavy influence from Tokyo. You can spend all the time learning ‘standard’ pitch accent, only to either go to Tochigi and discover everyone there doesn’t use pitch accent, meaning that it’s utterly useless as a distinguishing tool, or go to Osaka, where half the pitches are upside down, and that’s before you discover they have *tone* on top.
There’s this weird belief that pitch accent is somehow a fundamental part of how Japanese works. I’ve even seen it described as ‘critical for understanding’. This is not true. Pitch accent is just that; an *accent*. Pitch exists, make no mistake, but the accent varies across the country just like any other accent, meaning that if you really want a good pitch accent, pick a place, live in it, and learn the accent there.
Pitch accent is ***only*** useful (never mandatory, only *useful*) if it’s relevant to where you live. Otherwise, it’s a waste of time, and if you spend the effort solidifying a particular form now, that’s only more effort that you’ll have to spend *breaking* that habit so that you can actually obtain the relevant accent.
‘But you at least need *some* form of accent to sound natural’ no. You don’t. Some Japanese dialects actually lack pitch accent entirely, meaning that Japanese with an absence of pitch accent *is a native feature*.
Sorry for the long comment, but every now and again I see people talking about pitch accent like it’s something that every learner must expend considerable effort mastering, when in reality there’s no need for that. Pitch accent is very subtle and very finicky, meaning it can be very frustrating for what is in reality very little benefit, so I want to spare learners that frustration. /rant
TL;DR: pitch accent isn’t really necessary, and I wouldn’t worry about it. Do it if you want, sure, go nuts, but it can be very frustrating and I want to spare learners who have difficulty with it that frustration.