Learn Pitch Accent
Master the melody of Japanese. Start with the fundamentals and build your way up.
What are Moras?
拍とは
Understanding the rhythmic units of Japanese - different from syllables!
The 4 Pitch Patterns
4つのアクセント型
Heiban, Atamadaka, Nakadaka, Odaka - the building blocks of Japanese melody.
Particles & Pitch
助詞とアクセント
How particles inherit pitch from the words they follow.
Compound Words
複合語
How pitch changes when words combine - McCawley's rules explained.
Quick Overview: What is Pitch Accent?
Japanese is a pitch-accent language. Unlike English (stress-accent) or Chinese (tonal), Japanese uses HIGH and LOW pitch patterns to distinguish meaning.
Note: 橋 is Odaka - the pitch drop only appears on the following particle (が, を, etc.). In isolation, it sounds like a flat pattern!
Getting pitch wrong won't always cause misunderstanding, but it's the difference between sounding natural and sounding foreign.
Content based on NHK日本語発音アクセント新辞典 and standard Tokyo dialect phonology.
Illustration from Loose Drawing