pitch accent (not tones)

[metablue]

I don't know enough Japanese to know all the tricky words. I just know that most of my Japanese practice comes from a chat room, where I'm typing romaji, and within the first few days pitch accent had come up a couple of times. My friend is very blunt, and he'd get all confused and say "what are you on about", and then say "oh, I read that as X, not Y, they're pronounced differently you see".

The main reason, though, is that when Natsuko and the others break down the Japanese phrases in class, each syllable has a very definite pitch. It rises and falls in specific places. It's obviously important, or it wouldn't be there in the breakdown. It's like there's a whole layer of information there that never gets mentioned or explained.

I don't see how adding pitch to the vocabulary list could really be that difficult and time consuming compared to coming up with a lesson, and making the kanji and vocab list and the pdf and so on.

[Jason]

I don't see how adding pitch to the vocabulary list could really be that difficult and time consuming compared to coming up with a lesson, and making the kanji and vocab list and the pdf and so on.

But the issue isn't comparing the time and effort side by side with that stuff. The issue is that they're still a very small team and working their butts off as it is. So, yes, the time and effort it would take to put into something so relatively unimportant would cut into the time they have to do other more important stuff.

Wait...how did pitch accent come up as an issue if you were typing in a text chat?

BTW, how long have you been studying Japanese.

[kinoko]

[Before I start... sorry for the double thread, but I created this topic first, but then I realized that you could have polls in the Listener's Lounge section, so I created a poll there. I did give a link to this thread, too. I meant for that thread to just stay a poll, but... ]

...I totally agree that learning the correct pitch accent for words and sentences probably would be a good way to improve your japanese pronunciation. I do think it's much more work than it seems at first though. Not actually inserting the marks but finding out where to put them. By the way, if this would be done, do you think one should mark the dialog they way it is said, i.e. not standard dialect if the speaker doesn't say it like that, or mark it they way it "should" be said and live with the fact that it doesn't match the audio?

Dialect igives another reason why markings (for how the words "should" be pronounced) could help. If someone doesn't speak completely standard Japanese, and we're learning new words from them, we probably could end up pronouncing some words with non-standard pitch.

What probably would be doable though is to insert these marks in the vocabulary lists, not in the actual dialog. I'll forward this idea to the team and see what can be done...

I think that if you're going to go along with the accent marks, then sections like without sound should be the priority.

...Having markers in the transcripts is a definitely "No", but maybe we can have something in the vocab (I don't really see the need to have them in the transcripts, since you would practice pitch when you practice words, and so it is more natural to have them in the vocab too.)...

Why is it a "no" for the transcripts? There are cases when you can't know the proper pitch, even when you hear each word individually broken down. Suppose hashi (bridge) was a vocab word along with hashi (edge) in one lesson (は「しが vss は「し」が). Unless the two were both used in a sentence and followed by a particle, or if someone pointed it out, no one could tell the difference between the two.

I wouldn't say I've missed them---I think the fact that I've lived here for some time and I've only been misunderstood/corrected a couple of times reinforces my reasoning for thinking it's a waste of the cast's time to put them on every word.

It's not all about just being understood to everyone. I know it's not necessary, but I'd still like my Japanese to sound as good as possible.

If you need them at all, I suppose the vocabulary section is the better place to put them, but seeing as how most of us in the forum won't be the ones going through and tediously re-typing the words, it's easy for us to say, "We need them!"

Please read this:

I do think it's much more work than it seems at first though. Not actually inserting the marks but finding out where to put them.

It's not totally the simplest thing there ever was... but it's definitely closer to that than the most difficult thing ever. I'm not making anyone to tediously take out big ink-sucking monster title images and replace them with a totally new layout for 100+ pdfs, of which the online files must be replaced one-by-one after the copying and pasting and adjusting is finished for every single one of them... But Jonas is still kindly doing that. And while he's doing that, it would be easier to add a maximum of two keystrokes for every word at the same time. I never said "We need them!" I said it would be nice if we could have them.

I agree that a show about pitch tones could be very helpful. Just making people aware of them is important, but I believe some people are blowing their importance out of proportion. I understand that we all learn differently and put emphasis on different things, so I believe it's blown out of proportion. I'm interested to know how many more examples you can think of (besides はし、あめ、つぎ) where miss-pronouncing them means a different word?

I know perfectly well that words like that aren't too much of a problem, especially with context. But I said it before--not all of us want to live with mediocre accents for [at least most of] the rest of our lives. Marked accents could speed up the pronunciation-improving process easily.

Someone who sincerely believes it's so important should volunteer their time to type them up every day!

Should everyone who sincerely believes it's important to have a free podcast to help people learn Japanese go out and help? Do you believe that? Then you should do it! Or, do you think that it's important that we have the visual aid of the pdfs along with the audio? Then you should do that, too!

I want pitch accents marked on the notes, but I'm not able to do it myself. I don't have the time or the resources. And besides... I thought that they were getting paid for this.

But the issue isn't comparing the time and effort side by side with that stuff. The issue is that they're still a very small team and working their butts off as it is. So, yes, the time and effort it would take to put into something so relatively unimportant would cut into the time they have to do other more important stuff.
Confused

It's still hardly any time. If you're living in Tokyo, just ask a native speaker to mark the words for you. How long would that take? Maybe a few seconds, hardly bordering on a minute. It's really, really not that hard for them. If I was living in Tokyo, I could just do that, but I'm not, so I can't.

All I'd like for someone who has already dedicated part of their daily routine to help people like me learn Japanese to spare a few seconds for me and other people who want what I do. I've kept an open mind the whole time we've been discussing this thing, and I still feel that the accent marks would help me. Sorry if I've been a pain, but I'm really just giving the feedback that Peter and the gang say they love so much, and I really didn't want to waste anyone's time.


Sorry for typos or incoherence; no time to reread.

[Jason]

All I'd like for someone who has already dedicated part of their daily routine to help people like me learn Japanese to spare a few seconds for me and other people who want what I do.

Well, what about those of us who don't want them and would find them distracting?

To those of you who are so adamantly for the pitch accents, I have 2 questions. 1) How long have you been studying Japanese? And 2) why don't you believe us who've either been studying for several years at least or have even lived there when we say that they're not going to be worth it? I'm telling you, the only way you can really improve your accent a noticable amount is to live in the country and hear and speak the language everyday for at least a couple of years. And I really don't mean this to sound rude, but if someone's so tonedeaf that they can't pick up on the accents from hearing other people say the word, how are they going to be able to tell if they're pronouncing it right even if they have accent marks? Unless they have like selective tonedeafness or something.

*BTW, 音痴(おんち） = tone-deaf

[metablue]

So, yes, the time and effort it would take to put into something so relatively unimportant would cut into the time they have to do other more important stuff.

I'm saying I'd find it useful and interesting. It's up to them to decide whether they want to do it or not.

Wait...how did pitch accent come up as an issue if you were typing in a text chat?

Because there isn't any! We have to go purely on words and context, without any of that "irrelevent" pitch accent.

BTW, how long have you been studying Japanese.

Since "Tennis Anyone?"

To the people saying, "I've been studying Japanese/living there for years and I say it's not important":

1. It's obvious to me from listening to the podcasts and hearing the cast break down phrases that pitch accent is important. If we put it to the cast and they say it isn't important, I'll listen to them. But I'm not just taking the word of some guy who keeps saying "I've been studying Japanese for 3 years and you haven't, so be quiet". And even if the cast say that you don't have to have the pitch accent right in order to be understood, I'd still like to learn about it. The words I'm speaking don't sound right to me unless the accent is right.

2. People won't tell you when your accent makes you difficult to understand. I work with people with almost incomprehensible accents and no one would dream of telling them. We just put huge effort into trying to understand them, which is exhausting, so they get avoided more than the average person. Doesn't make their accent any better. When I moved to Canada from New Zealand I thought people could understand me just fine, but it wasn't until years later that they confided that they spent a lot of time in the early months nodding because they couldn't understand half of what I was saying. And those were direct North Americans who spoke the same language as me.

[Jason]

Because there isn't any! We have to go purely on words and context, without any of that "irrelevent" pitch accent.

Ummmm.....isn't that all you have to go by in a text conversation anyway?

But I'm not just taking the word of some guy who keeps saying "I've been studying Japanese for 3 years and you haven't, so be quiet".

I never said that. I'm just wondering why the less experienced students seem to not be considering the more experienced students' advice. I never said "what we say goes, so shut up." I've been trying to say this whole time "I think it would be a really good idea if you'd consider what we're saying because we have more experience on this." If you'd like, I'll email my Japanese teacher, a native speaker and a long-time Japanese teacher, and ask her what she thinks if you don't think our opinion holds enough water to consider it.

And even if the cast say that you don't have to have the pitch accent right in order to be understood, I'd still like to learn about it. The words I'm speaking don't sound right to me unless the accent is right.

Well, then by all means go and study it. If they don't use accent marks here it doesn't mean you can't go learn about them somewhere else.

But I definitely agree that this is ultimately up to the staff. I think each side has thoroughly expressed their point of view. So how about we just leave it up to them now and stop squabbling about it amongst ourselves?

[Charles]

When learning pitch accents, the only thing I'm worried about is sounding like a girl.

No offense, of course. Anything that can help me become more understandable is very much appreciated. But I don't want to unkowingly make my pitch so proper that it begins to sound effeminate. Maybe I am being unreasonable? It's just something that I keep reading about.

Jason, in my college classes, we never focused on pitch either. We talked about it sometimes, but my professor never made it rigorous. But, then, I thought that class moved very slowly.

[Bueller_007]

Kinoko: I never said it was the same as a "war". It's an analogy.
I read your poll carefully, and saw that it was quite obviously biased towards your own side.

You couldn't have given the options "It probably wouldn't be worth the effort involved"? or "I don't think it would be useful"?

[metablue]

Please just stop now. Kinoko made a reasonable suggestion and has stayed polite and rational this whole time, despite the dismissive responses. If someone says they're interested in something, especially on a suggestions forum, don't pounce on them and start telling them that they're wrong to be interested in it, and then criticize and pick apart their suggestions. It sets the wrong tone, and then people start arguing and it gets all unpleasant. The poll was a nice attempt to give everyone a chance to cast a vote and bypass all the bickering.

[Bueller_007]

Please just stop now. Kinoko made a reasonable suggestion and has stayed polite and rational this whole time, despite the dismissive responses. If someone says they're interested in something, especially on a suggestions forum, don't pounce on them and start telling them that they're wrong to be interested in it, and then criticize and pick apart their suggestions. It sets the wrong tone, and then people start arguing and it gets all unpleasant. The poll was a nice attempt to give everyone a chance to cast a vote and bypass all the bickering.

The poll was completely one-sided. Suggestions were being "picked apart", and responses were "dismissive" because, precisely as Jason said: It would be too much sugar for a dime. Adding stress accent will take a lot of work on the part of the jpod crew, that we feel might be better spent elsewhere.

To summarize my POV:

#1 The purpose of marking pitch accent is usually to supplement a text where no audio version is available. JPod is, by its very nature, a portable audio program; only in very rare cases will the learner be studying written Jpod material without an audio copy of the podcast available. Pitch accent, if it is relevant in any given word/phrase, should be apparent by its usage in the podcast itself.

#2 What you risk by adding pitch accent to Jpod is this: People walking around saying haSHI! haSHI! and overemphasizing the stressed syllables. What they should, in fact, be doing, is copying what they hear on the jpod program. And we don't need to mark stress accent for this.

#3 Marking the conversations in their entirety would make the show notes look like an absolute train wreck, regardless of which system is used. It could only be done by a native speaker of the Tokyo dialect, and would take a LOT of time. It would be of little use, unless you plan to quote of jpod conversations word-for-word to your friends, or enjoy trying to interpret pitch accent rules by looking at long, confusing examples.

#4 Marking the dictionary would also be a job for a native speaker, and it would be MUCH more painstaking. At present, edict contains more than 117,000 entries, none of which contain pitch accent information.

#5 I agree with Jason that marking ONLY the vocab lists is a reasonable compromise between "effort involved" and "value to the learner". It might possibly be done by a well-educated foreign speaker (but is still best left to a native.) It would take some time, and make the show notes a little less presentable, but not unbearably so.

Nevertheless, I really don't feel it's worth the effort for a (primarily) audio program to pursue stress accents. If this were a text-based program, I might feel differently, however.

[metablue]

#5 I agree with Jason that marking ONLY the vocab lists is a reasonable compromise between "effort involved" and "value to the learner".

We all agreed a while back that this is an acceptable compromise.

[Bueller_007]

#5 I agree with Jason that marking ONLY the vocab lists is a reasonable compromise between "effort involved" and "value to the learner".

We all agreed a while back that this is an acceptable compromise.

Really? From posts subsequent to the "agreement":

Why is it a "no" for the transcripts?

Well, what about those of us who don't want them and would find them distracting?

Doesn't sound like it has been agreed upon to me.

Anyway, the reason I made the first post to which you replied wasn't to "reopen the debate", it was to respond to a comment made by kinoko (on another now-closed thread) that I was being unreasonable and hadn't actually read what he/she had written.

[norgus]

I stopped reading after about 6 or so posts, so appologies if this is already mentioned.

Let's not forget that there are multiple dialects in Japanese, of course the most obvious one to teach is standard 'toukyou' accent, but oosaka-ben is the exact opposite most of the time tone wise, isn't it?

also, all forms of ローマ字 are evil evil things and imo the best way to go about it is to type ro-maji as if you were inputting using the windows IME.

although you can still end up with people getting confused there because they just can't imagine how tu = つ and si = し, tya = ちゃ etc etc etc.

Sorry to go off on a ローマ字-rant suddenly.

[Alexandre]

I read all I could find in the forum about this issue. Almost 3 years later, people keep asking questions about pitches and there is still no clear answer. Is Jpod going to do something about it or not? Is there a lesson out there on pitches that I'm not finding?

I strongly disagree with all those that claim that pitches are not that big a deal. Every time I asked someone to correct my pronunciation, they corrected the pitches. Maybe some people only care about being understood, or getting by, but I want to do the best I can and sound as good as I can and at this point, pitches are the problem.

Yes, these are audio lessons, but still, a lot of people are complaining: there is just something missing. At least, let's get a few lessons on pitches going. I chose to pay to make Jpod my source of information in learning Japanese, but as far as pitches go, I'm not getting all the info I need.

[Jessi]

Alexandreさん,

We've made a lesson introducing the concept of pitch as a part of the Pronunciation lessons that come with the Gengo Japanese program, however we haven't decided if we are going to release the Pronunciation lessons on the site yet. We are considering it, though, and appreciate the feedback!

As a fellow learner who also has some trouble with pitch, I've found the following links to be helpful
http://sp.cis.iwate-u.ac.jp/sp/lesson/j ... anese.html (scroll down to the section called Accent)
http://www.shiawase.co.uk/2009/05/13/pi ... -japanese/