Is Japanese Pitch Accent Worth Learning?

[@ThatJapaneseManYuta]

Learn Japanese with me -> bit.ly/34XumLE

[@Fun-rf9vs]

Yes

[@e.v6134]

Ty

[@Kestrel16C]

So you followed the Matt vs. George debate?

[@ayo__ayo]

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.

[@kki2747]

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。

[@IcecreamCat23]

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

[@itzmimismd]

LMAO THAT SONG candyrain

[@nicbentulan]

But there's a differing kanji already. What about same kanji, same hiragana (and say no katakana) and same romaji. Can pitch be different?

[@IcecreamCat23]

@@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]

@@IcecreamCat23 but bat and bat don't have like a different 'kanji' or pronunciation...?

[@seneca983]

@@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.

[@ゾラデク]

"It actually just means 'pervert' and doesn't mean that thing you watch on a daily basis." LMAO

[@goishikaiganmademou]

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".

[@American_2]

@@goishikaiganmademou bicchi no tomodachi sekkusu

[@muhfadhli7887]

@@goishikaiganmademou u missed opportunity to say h spelling as sex or lewd eg franku ecchi shiyouze

[@josiahfugal5407]

I was the 69th like. Nice.

[@thememe986]

@@muhfadhli7887 ecchi shiooo

[@Robinz566]

If you say “no”, Dogen will come after you.

[@NeoNeko99]

And Misa, and Matt. There'll be a ruckus!

[@LilyUnicorn]

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.

[@darkfire_0579]

の

[@iusethisplatform]

@@darkfire_0579 ンオ

[@christopherluke9658]

@@LilyUnicorn did you even watch THIS video?

[@ay5636]

I love how Yuta incorporates his email list in every video without it being annoying. Good job And amazing video as always!

[@BohdanMelnychuk]

All this channel is basically a collection of ads of his list

[@KarolYuuki]

In every video I'm always waiting to see how he will introduce his email list

[@hgbtheman]

@@KarolYuuki facts lol

[@FlorianBaumann]

You don't need to subscribe to every email list, just to the email lists you need to subscribe to...

[@SuperLol]

smoothest plug in ever

[@sameash3153]

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.

[@bokumo7063]

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.

[@cameronschyuder9034]

Pretty ironic considering the topic of this video lol

[@beetheimmortal]

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.

[@brodericksiz625]

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).

[@sameash3153]

@@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.

[@animeisliterature]

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.

[@Tdp4man123]

LMAOO

[@tykep1009]

If you add some more vocabulary like "CH-i-n-ko" and "U-n-ko," you become a perfect Japanese brat ;-)

[@default632]

@@tykep1009 Pitch accent works on mora bro, not consonants.

[@mr.hashundredsofprivatepla3711]

fyi: i think this actually has an extremely fucked up meaning

[@snflwrbrain5723]

Thanks to that Japanese man Yuta

[@citizencalmar]

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.

[@Soni-jd4li]

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.

[@douglassmalone-omeally1683]

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.

[@zitloeng8713]

​@@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.

[@MyLittleGreenHairdedMermaid]

Sadly college and school focus writing and reading over actually speaking

[@Sora-el-manco]

@@MyLittleGreenHairdedMermaid and here's why I can't actually speak english irl

[@marker52]

I love this pitch accent arc every educational Japanese channel is going through right now.

[@cassiebelmont993]

Yeah, I'm glad to not be the only person who noticed this as a trend.

[@harshmnr]

I think I've only seen it with Dogen and Yuta..what other channels have been doing it? (Just curious.) ~:~

[@marker52]

@@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.

[@harshmnr]

@@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. ~:~

[@kristofferwarnberg5885]

The drama!

[@karenbastos6754]

"Yo hablo para conocer chicas guap- gente buena y hacer amigos" JAJAJAJAJ I LOVED IT

[@muttlanguages3912]

Oh, gente, I thought he said hentai, which was way worse!

[@TioDeive]

LOL!!!!!

[@karenbastos6754]

@@muttlanguages3912 XD

[@sdlion7287]

Oh another じゃじゃじゃじゃ speaking dude, I see you are a person of culture

[@kgpz100]

Ojalá fuera homosexual Yuta 😭😭

[@kronkthemystic6144]

“The thing you watch on a daily basis” Damn, he got me good.

[@cirei4682]

I feel called out

[@SeraYagami]

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 🙏

[@rryase]

Saved me a watch

[@prezentoappr1171]

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?

[@SeraYagami]

@@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.

[@prezentoappr1171]

@@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.

[@SeraYagami]

@@prezentoappr1171 Thank you so much for your time and the resources! And yes, Dogen's videos are very useful to me as well.

[@kyokoyumi]

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?).

[@悪魔城下町]

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).

[@xolang]

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.

[@kKizz]

@@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

[@michaels3003]

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.

[@mattiamele3015]

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.

[@jcxkzhgco3050]

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.

[@muhfadhli7887]

@ assasination classroom vibe mix AIUEO john madden

[@TwistedTeaFate]

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.

[@joshuasamuel2122]

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.

[@koreanfromzero]

I agree. It was very reasonable.

[@Yamabi_Kaze]

I mean, in spanish we have a lot of accents all around the world, even verb forms and pronouns and we understand each other

[@demianlugo7677]

Yo, in English accent is a different thing, when Americans learn Spanish they call it tilde

[@cosmos-wp9ft]

I agree in a lot of south american countries instead of saying hola we say buenas but people from spain still understand it

[@Yamabi_Kaze]

@@demianlugo7677 I'm not talking about written accents, but speaking accents, and dialects, even the phrase structures are different from region to region

[@sasshiro]

@@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.

[@ShaferHart]

@@demianlugo7677 there's tilde and accent. Two different things (though they share words in spanish).

[@melimellow95]

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.

[@Osprey1994]

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.

[@shimewaza]

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]

True. It's interesting. I am reading a book on it now.

[@shimewaza]

@@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.

[@BigGulpsV2]

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!

[@Vidchemy]

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.

[@vladys5238]

however, in chinese it makes a much greater difference than in japanese

[@Celso.Delgado]

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... 😂

[@kyle6344]

You perfectly captured a lot of my thoughts on pitch accent during the recent KZbin 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!

[@Guy-cb1oh]

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.

[@bekbolsunmukhamatov6308]

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.

[@dizzyantennae5883]

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.

[@Darkalyle]

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.

[@IustinPop]

I thought this is simply about language, but it was a nice discussion about the phylosophy of learning a new language. Thanks!

[@MA-rq4mn]

"If I say great it sounds like something is great"

[@cecy5963]

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: 😲

[@DarkShadow-pe4te]

True🤣🤣

[@miwwie1504]

Isn't that correct?!

[@barbievale]

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.

[@luckysbackupchannel]

when Yuta spoke Spanish, I pulled a Spanish version of "おぉ、日本語は上手です"

[@LuisEduardoGalarzaCervantes]

@@miwwie1504 It was great, even as a foreign language joke he pulled it off clean.

[@foodplsOld]

I like how you used the same example Pekora did for pitch accent.

[@yeetushmm6073]

ikr 😂😂 i had a feeling yuta was referencing a certain someone when he used that example

[@Louisvr2024]

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

[@SSSyndrome214]

I probably annoy the people around me whenever I watch one of Yuta's videos because he always has me bursting out in laughter. That last pronunciation of "hmmm" really got me. Never lose your sense of humor, Yuta!

[@alexdhamp]

That smooth transition into his Japanese lesson adverts again. XD

[@nullifiedou]

Yuta: "Hentai" Me in my head "Lowkey sounded like Usseewa"

[@saulgoodman4451]

That song is such a vibe

[@blackferrets820]

Banger

[@monicaant.1422]

I love that song ha

[@iordacheemanuel8965]

what thoes ussewa mean is it the same world as usseewa ?

[@monicaant.1422]

@@iordacheemanuel8965 shut up but in a rude way

[@lainiwakura1776]

Yuta knows more Spanish than I do, and I'm half Mexican in Southern California.

[@turboapples1233]

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

[@rukakoaye5368]

can you nail the phonems tho? pronunciaton isn't only about pitch accent

[@worldoffiction4882]

Expected to learn about Pitch Accent Got a music class instead, now that's multi-tasking Thanks for another informative video!

[@devendrashelar7934]

I love the way his conversation slips into promotion of his course!

[@tunafllsh]

His convincing/conveying information to help us decide is more like a philosophy lesson

[@MechanicalRabbits]

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.

[@tysonfitzgerald2235]

Very good explanation of pitch. I studied Japanese in college and it wasn’t described so clearly.

[@sirincognito1250]

Hey Yuta, how would you rate the pitch accent of google translate?

[@minamicole2943]

Idk if this helps but I tried a few different words and Atleast when it’s in Kanji the pitch accent works

[@joshuawood1082]

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

[@sorrygoogle9828]

@@joshuawood1082 there is also a great site called forvo.com where you can listen to native pronunciation of most Japanese words :P

[@michaels3003]

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).

[@Kestrel16C]

Nah. The database is incomplete. In many cases it won't display the right one. Use the one Joshua Wood recommended.

[@circomatic6124]

I have to admit: I clicked "like" after 20 seconds, because of the T-shirt. Then I got distracted, thinking about the new panels in Chapter 139...also shortly got distracted thinking about content I certainly do not consume in a daily basis. Now I cannot compare the content of this video at all with Dogen- Samantha. Brilliant timing and marketing strategy - Chapeau!

[@drsonaligupta75]

Man I am a BIG fan of the toaru series, loved that reference!

[@Gruzbee]

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.

[@StrikeA1G]

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.

[@KappaCrona]

"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?

[@AnimatorZeeVIDEO]

Those promos for his Japanese course are always so smooth and clever, lol. That aside, these videos are super helpful! I'm trying to learn Japanese myself and I'm still a beginner, but these are a huge help and help keep me motivated. ありがとうございます！

[@Jellylamps]

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.

[@ValkyrieTiara]

Kizuna Ai aside, anybody who watches a lot of Korone also intuitively knows that pitch accent is at least a little important in Japanese and gets talked about all the time lol Also I want to say I really appreciate the bit at the end, where you talk about how you speak a language can communicate things about you as a person and your feelings regarding the language, people, and culture. I feel like not enough people understand that and I've never heard anybody but me talk about it before, so hearing someone else address that was really cool.

[@carlflygare5687]

Really good video for those interested in the a little more "deep" and "complex" sides of language learning and the choices you can make. I think that many don't even think about this

[@nathanielhickman9451]

The sarcastic "great" is the best. It's like greeeaattt....I just love that I burnt my food.

[@Angiieread]

Yuta: lo hablo para conocer chicas guap... gente buena y hacer amigos Me: SHooked

[@SeraYagami]

What did he say? Can you translate please? 🙏

[@Angiieread]

@@SeraYagami I speak Spanish to meet hot gir.. meet good people and make friends 😭

[@SeraYagami]

@@Angiieread OMG Yuta-senseiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii xD Thanks for the translation! ^.^

[@dereklol8310]

when does he say this ?

[@NJDJ1986]

@@dereklol8310 @16:15

[@murosekai]

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。

[@akira_ariga]

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.

[@bentosekai]

I've just started using a pitch accent dictionary whilst working through the core 2k/6k anki deck and it's been extremely helpful! I can usually pronounce Japanese words relatively well, but there are still a lot of words that I fumble with in terms of pitch accent, so it's helpful to understand how to refine my speech. I think that learning the basics of pitch accent is incredibly useful for any learner of Japanese :)

[@cyphre]

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.

[@HDPew]

Currently taking your education by E-mail, learnt alot so far Thank You!

[@remanuel8396]

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

[@playmakersmusic]

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

[@remanuel8396]

@@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.

[@playmakersmusic]

@@remanuel8396 Fair enough, I get what you mean! Cheers!

[@mrahzzz]

Also, the thumbnail of this one is so good.

[@igodreamer7096]

16:15 I admit, you caught off guard there! HAHAHAHA Keep up the good work, man! 💪

[@vanesslifeygo]

Pitch accents will vary from region to region. If you are learning it should only be because you already have a workplace and you want to learn the speech of the region if it might assist with work. It's not socially sound.

[@starry3824]

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.

[@statesminds]

"Hentai. It just means pervert. It doesn't mean the thing you watch on a daily basis" lol Yuta burning us

[@DanTJones]

ahh as learner of japanese this is very interesting to know..im half thai and speak thai fluently as its my mothers language. Thai also has pitches that if changed when saying a word, completely changes the meaning. cool ^_^

[@Derinsula]

"Great" in a dropping tone in English is a way of sarcastically saying something is bad.

[@sukirii]

4:25 I think this is true for almost any language (when I learned english, I would always learn sentences structures I would never use in real life but once I learned most of the basic and more advanced vocabulary, I started watching KZbin videos and anime only in english, which made my english much more fluent and natural). That's why I think that at the beginning, everything you learn are just rules which you hammer into your brain but after some time of doing a big part of your daily life using that language (you don't even need to speak it or live in that country), you will not think about any grammar rules anymore and just do it intuitively without thinking about it.

[@Demetoriusu]

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.

[@riotangel4701]

For me learning a language's vocal system is important; not only does one sound _clearer_ and intelligible, it carries more sincerely to native speakers. In my experience foreigners appreciate it when I try to pronounce words their way. It's also a joy to learn new soundscapes that my tongue and throat never learnt from young. e.g. German, French. That said, indeed Japanese language teachers should offer dedicated sessions to heighten awareness about pitch/tones _as well as_ speed. My original Japanese teachers hardly explicitly indicated some words have faster or slower pronunciations e.g. 七 しち (seven) and the 橋 vs 箸 like you mentioned.

[@CappeSun]

2:40 That was the smoothest self-promotion so far.

[@mooncaketin]

During my two years of taking beginner's Japanese in university, my professors never mentioned pitch accents at all. I only learned about them when I watched an episode of the J-drama "Trick", which also dealt with the different versions of "hashi" 😃

[@riroo8275]

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

[@bobfranklin2572]

Yeah I expected that. I thought he would talk about like a suspicious "Uh-HUuuh" 🤔 kidna thing. Like when you're doubtful but listening.

[@Remy2Stronk]

I remember before even learning about intonation in other languages talking to my sister about how I noticed that in English pitch means soooo much. People know certain "melodies" so well that you can actually say pretty complex things without saying a single word if you just very accurately imitate the pitch of it. For example "I don't know." _/\_ lol. Or "no." *_. or "yes" .* She told me I am far too easily entertained.

[@Remy2Stronk]

You can ever say "I don't know about thaaaat." (contesting what someone just said hesitantly, expressing doubt) with just a long, steady, high pitch.

[@harshmnr]

See...I've been thinking about this for a while (especially because of Dogen's videos being in my recommendations 😂) and I have some thoughts. I've been studying Japanese for almost nine years and I do consider myself fluent, not like a native speaker obviously, but I can talk in-depth about any topic I want, etc. I do try to pay attention to my pronunciation and I want to sound as much like a native speaker as possible. But I will admit I've never paid that much attention to pitch accent, (maybe partially because I'm just lazy sometimes 😂) but mainly because I just think something like "I'll just listen to native speakers and try my best to emulate their pronunciation, and that way the pitch will come naturally." But the problem is, I don't have a Japanese person's ears. It drives me crazy because I know I probably don't sound perfect, but most of the time I can't hear my own accent in Japanese (not just for pitch but pronunciation in general), and even if I can, I don't know what to do to fix it. I feel pretty confident that I don't have that strong of an accent because I feel like I'm saying things basically the same way that I hear Japanese people say them. (And Japanese people understand me perfectly fine.) I notice other people's accents sometimes if they're really strong, but I just wish that I could hear what Japanese people hear so I would be able to pick up on the really little things and slight accents. Another thing that's hard to tell is if my Japanese accent doesn't sound natural, how much is because of actual pronunciation/pitch problems and how much is just the way my voice itself sounds? Sometimes I ask my Japanese friends to correct my pronunciation but Japanese people are often too nice and won't tell gaijins that their pronunciation is wrong. However a friend did tell me once that sometimes my pitch sounds unnatural when it comes to pronouncing katakana words that come from English, because I unconsciously use the English intonation. (For example, I said トッピング like "TOppingu" whereas it's supposed to just be all flat.) So I've tried to be a little more conscious of this lately. But sometimes I feel like trying so hard to think about your pitch all the time can actually make you sound _unnatural._ To be completely honest that's how I feel about Dogen sometimes...I know I have no place saying this because he's studied pitch waaaaay more than me and I'm not Japanese either so it's not easy or right for me to judge, but I'm just saying that even though I'm a fellow gaijin, when I listen to Dogen, to me it seems like he's trying so hard to make sure his pronunciation/pitch is perfect that his Japanese ends up sounding kind of weird/different from how I perceive natives' pronunciation. (Don't get me wrong, I know it's still very very good though. And I'm not saying mine is better.) Now that may be completely wrong, I understand. But it's just what I notice at this moment and that's why I want to know how Japanese people feel about his pronunciation. And mine too for goodness sake but it's just so hard to find a native speaker to correct it for me. 😒 Also, in the small number of Dogen's pitch videos that I've watched, the stuff that he says tends to seem kind of...obvious? to me (at least in terms of when I hear Japanese people speak) but at the same time I don't know if I'm actually saying it right when I talk. I really don't mean to sound high and mighty; I'm just genuinely curious. And wondering if anyone else feels this way. I guess I'm more of the "listen to native speakers, understand by context, try to emulate them" kind of person instead of specifically studying pitch itself. But the problem with that too is that I lived in Kyoto for a year so the Japanese I emulate might sometimes end up having an accent anyway, and also now that I'm back in America most of the Japanese I hear is me talking to myself. 😂 So if I'm making mistakes I just keep repeating them. Well that was a novel. 😂 Anybody have any thoughts, just let me know! ~:~

[@JackTse]

4:55 - true, perhaps the middle ground is... learn the pitch accent for the most common stuff once you are ready for it. hashi since it has to do with both a eating utensil and a tourist item is a perfect example... also once you know what it is, you can also learn through immersion as time goes on

[@rattrap316]

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.

[@Mythos27]

Okay, you've convinced me to subscribe to your e-mail newsletter and the channel. I'm learning Japanese using DuoLingo, books, and KZbin videos. So far your videos on spoken japanese and some really old, good videos on scripts have been the best deal for me. Thank you, really. 🙏🏻

[@teogonzalezcalzada5812]

Your spanish is great! I hope you have met a lot of... good people thanks to speaking it lol By the way, Spanish also has it's own form of pitch accent, but it is (I think) way more documented, and is almost mandatory in any spanish course. I think it's mainly because the way we speak spanish is strongly related to the way we write it. Our written language is almost strictly phonetical, so the pitch is way more important for formal language. For exmaple, you said "Yo ha↑blo", when a neutral spanish speaker would've said something more like "Yo ↑ha↓blo". And I find it really interesting, because I think that learning japanese from a spanish background can give you a different perspective on the language.

[@ashlaskash]

I see that some people have mentioned Swedish already, but Norwegian (my co-native language) and Serbo-Croatian are some other languages with pitch accent. What sets Norwegian's pitch accent apart from Japanese's is that Norwegian also uses stress accent, so it's sort of a mixed system. That, and Norwegian also has only two pitch patterns whereas Standard Japanese has four. So speaking Norwegian might help you understand how pitch accent works in Japanese, but the way it works in Japanese is still pretty different so it'll still take a while to really understand.

[@ashton-zx3mh]

the timing of this video is perfect. i just started to learn about pitch accent

[@grantfreeman8224]

I remember the point in my learning when I started thinking about pitch accent and found that by just learning about the concept itself and continuing my mimicking exercises, I naturally started using the correct pitch accent. I usually never thought about it because I'm simply copying the way a native speaker says the word or phrase. I think a natural approach like this can be a lot more inviting to learners than studying the pitch accent of every word you learn, which can be daunting to some, but I know everyone learns differently.

[@RamithGopinath1398]

This video came at just the right time, especially considering the renewed series of debates about whether pitch accent is really worth learning or not... Great stuff 👏🏼

[@Sommernacht15]

The stuff you say in the video heavily reminds me of my country too. Here in germany, each region has their own way of speaking. Casually we use standart german and the most differences are heard in a way of speaking we call "platt-deutsch" which is today only used by older people because it was all-common long ago. You still hear differences in stuff like pronoucing today tho. You can quite easly tell when people are from far in the north or far in the south in TV interviews.

[@aisansilva6228]

I'm sure Yuta was looking at that vtuber just with research proposes.

[@christopherluke9658]

For sure

[@primaryramus]

unless there is something heNTAI

[@UltimateAbRod]

Yuta, My man, (probably you'll never see this but whatever) Im a very big fan of your work, you spanish is amazing, if you ever want to practice it with a native spanish guy, i'll be glad to help with anything.

[@yalnayal]

Omg, thank you. Finally, a good video on this!

[@saulgoodman4451]

Yuta gets away with so many shameless plugs 😂

[@weeklyfascination]

You are absolutely correct. Many Japanese instructors "shield" learners from more advanced information. Maybe they think it's too much at once, or it's too difficult. I call this "Japanese with training wheels". I really wish my early instructors had at least mentioned pitch accent.Maybe one issue with people like me who learned mostly by ear. We understood spoken Japanese, and we think we're repeating that back, but maybe we're not.

[@chaeyoungsbestie414]

I was always curious about the whole everyone has a general grasp of the standard accent thing, because Twice members Sana and Momo speak in heavy Kansai accents and are constantly talking about how they want to better their standard accent. They both left Japan in their late teens, so maybe that has something to do with it? Idk kzbin.info/www/bejne/jpaqhaKva6dmbdE In this clip, Sana (middle, from Osaka) said that Momo (the one on the very far right and from Kyoto) was speaking robotically/syllable by syllable when speaking to staff members in Japan bc she didn’t want to mess up her pitch. I wonder if they are just exaggerating how bad they are for comedic effect, or if they actually have a lot of trouble? And how common this worry is amongst ppl that grew up speaking dialects?

[@playmakersmusic]

Hello, fellow ONCE! Actually Kansai-ben and Tokyo-ben(Standard Japanese) can be mutually intelligible at times! A person on one of the other comments mentioned that in Kansai, the pitch of Hashi is different. So it is not uncommon for people from Kansai-ben to not get the pitch accent of Tokyo-ben right since by default since both Kanto(East) region - Tokyo and Kansai(West) - Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe(including Mina) are literally on the opposite end of the regions. Even Japanese from the two regions behave differently.

[@chaeyoungsbestie414]

@@playmakersmusic Hey!! Thanks for responding! My question was more to do with what you said, pitch accent. The two have expressed before that they have difficulty getting the pitches correctly, which is why asked: is this a common issue? Or are they exaggerating how bad at standard speech they are (particularly with the pitches, obv not with anything else).

[@rpmvicfenixvic1650]

love your survey corps t shirt

[@gianlu6863]

Since It's been an hot theme lately, I am glad I got to see a rant of yours about the argument, too. I agree on everything that was said, It was very clarifying.

[@mrahzzz]

Overall in English, you're spot on that there's no overall standard for the language - but within the US, we have a "standard American" accent that actors are taught (the general hollywood accent). You'll generally find it in central US. I believe the same goes for the UK and general British Isles area. Can't speak for places like Australia or NZ or other English speaking countries... in fact, I haven't ever analyzed different accents within Australia... Just in case others are unaware of this and find it interesting!

[@danielnoriega6655]

Spanish might be difficult in many ways... but if you know the rules to read and write Spanish you already know the right pronunciation, all the information you need to know to pronounce a word is presented in our writing system.

[@alexfriedman2047]

An examples of Pitch accent in English would be words like Permit and Permit. PER-mit is a paper giving you permission while perMIT is to allow someone to do something. Also there are other words but I'm half asleep so I can't think straight.... In English it's more like homonym and Homophones rather than pitch accent but it's kinda the same general thing.

[@Laura_Darkspear]

Your email subscription sales pitch is always perfect. 😆 Also, I love your AOT shirt!

[@aliceliotto7542]

Thank you for this video. From an Italian point of view there is no difficult to understand the Japanese approach to the accents. In fact for Italian people it is much more difficult to understand English stress (it is always for us). In Italian many common words change their meaning according to the accent: " pero" (the tree of pears) and "però" (but) and "àncora" (anchor for ships) and "ancòra" (again).

[@japanrain7436]

Yuta making monogatari references is what keeps the fandom afloat

[@StrangerHappened]

*YUTA-CHAN's* advertisements for his teaching services make me smile. Otherwise, this is not happening with advertisements, ever.

[@BlitzboyGaming]

高低アクセント , 高低 means high/low literally translates to high or low pitch.

[@ntrg3248]

As one KZbin commenter said on a different video about pitch accent: "Japanese people never gave me a bridge when I asked for chopsticks"

[@todololo1037]

Yeah well you are still asking for a bridge, though. It's like you are saying "I am going to put a piss of shit on the bitch." Yeah through context people can understand that you are trying to say "I am going to put a piece of sheet on the beach." but you are still going to sound like you are saying the former one. I don't know about you but when I say 運行(unkou↑, to operate)　I definitely don't want to sound like I am saying ウンコ(unko↓, poop) even when people understand me.

[@SelcraigClimbs]

@@todololo1037 tbf the こう vs こ distinction in vowel length would be enough without the pitch accent .

[@todololo1037]

@@SelcraigClimbs Not in a rapid converstion. Misa said the same and I agree with her. In a rapid conversation Japanese people rely more on the tonal difference than vowel length to distinguish this type of words.

[@SelcraigClimbs]

@@todololo1037 I disagree however. The mora are preserved even in rapid conversation. Perhaps being a percussive musician has created a bias towards rhythm for my ears 👂