buonaparte Wrote:A good lecture.

A transcript + mp3 files of all the Japanese examples recorded by native speakers would nice, too.

AlexandreC Wrote:I'm hoping native speakers post to confirm whether the pronunciation is accurate or not. I won't be recording native speakers.

AlexandreC Wrote:Thanks! It's great to get some feedback.

There's a good deal of discussion about the video here too: http://www.lingq.com/learn/en/forum/24/15071/?page=1

AlexandreC (from the lingq forum) Wrote:If you -- all of you -- had to give advice as to how a person should learn English stress, I bet most, if not almost all, of you would say "just listen and copy".

And as far as English is concerned, that's not bad advice. Stress is pretty obvious -- the vowel is louder, often longer, it stands out -- it sticks out even. It's not a complex system, it has no effect on other words, and it never changes. Not only that, but if you remember the vowels right, you can often predict the stress. But if you get the stress wrong, we'll still understand you. After all, there are few minimal pairs in writing (like record, advocate, etc.) and virtually none if you only consider pronunciation. Yet, we teach it, we correct it, we tell students to pay attention to it. Why? Because it sounds better to us. It's easier to understand. The speaker gives off a better impression. If you get stress wrong AND make another error in pronuncing the word, you've made the word twice as hard to understand. Get the stress right, and you can screw up half the sounds, we'll still understand.

The same applies to Japanese. If all learners studied pitch, they would sound nicer, there would be less misunderstandings. But if they don't, it's not the end of the world.

However, we treat Japanese pitch and English stress completely differently. Almost nobody teaches pitch. A quick mention at the beginning of a book, at best, and nada mas. Why is that? In an effort to simplify things for learners of a language that is already very challenging, we've deprived them of information that could make their Japanese clearer, prettier and easier to understand.

While you can tell an English learner than they can just listen and copy, unfortunately, you can't say that for Japanese. Pitch is a lot more subtle, it's affected by neighbouring words and it moves to other morae depending on certain factors (verb endings, etc.). It's more subtle, more volatile and more complex: it requires an explanation. But because it's harder, we just say it's not important. Truth is, it's just more convenient that way.

Learners of Japanese can't just listen and learn pitch. They don't. They can't. It just doesn't happen. It's not impossible that someone who lives in Japan for years may be able to do it with conscious effort, but we know this is exceptionally rare. For the vast majority of students, including people living in Japan, to listen and copy simply isn't a credible option.

I think this is valuable information. I think it's an important part of the language and should be taught, and all students of Japanese should be given access to it. As learners, we can choose to ignore it, but we should be able to make that choice for ourselves.

AlexandreC Wrote:Thanks! It's great to get some feedback.

There's a good deal of discussion about the video here too: http://www.lingq.com/learn/en/forum/24/15071/?page=1

nadiatims Wrote:

AlexandreC Wrote:Thanks! It's great to get some feedback.

There's a good deal of discussion about the video here too: http://www.lingq.com/learn/en/forum/24/15071/?page=1

Is there another version of the speech recording you linked to floating around on the web? I can't seem to listen to it on my mac...

partner55083777 Wrote:One comment that was made on the lingq thread is that Japanese spoken with stress (like english) sounds very foreign. It would be very helpful to have a recording of some random sentence with and without stress, and with and without correct accent. For example, I want to hear the sentence "俺は今日学校に行く" read four different ways:

1) stress (like an american would pronounce Japanese) and bad accent
2) no stress (like a japanese person pronounces Japanese) and bad accent
3) stress (like an american would pronounce Japanese) and perfect accent
4) no stress (like a japanese person pronounces Japanese) and perfect accent

I probably am stressing words when I speak Japanese, but I'm not sure how to listen for it myself. It would be really helpful to an easy example from someone else. Maybe a bilingual person would be good?

partner55083777 Wrote:One comment that was made on the lingq thread is that Japanese spoken with stress (like english) sounds very foreign. It would be very helpful to have a recording of some random sentence with and without stress, and with and without correct accent. For example, I want to hear the sentence "俺は今日学校に行く" read four different ways:

1) stress (like an american would pronounce Japanese) and bad accent
2) no stress (like a japanese person pronounces Japanese) and bad accent
3) stress (like an american would pronounce Japanese) and perfect accent
4) no stress (like a japanese person pronounces Japanese) and perfect accent

I probably am stressing words when I speak Japanese, but I'm not sure how to listen for it myself. It would be really helpful to an easy example from someone else. Maybe a bilingual person would be good?

AlexandreC Wrote:That would be interesting. I know some people from Kanto, Kansai, Tohoku... and some Canadians. I could record them all saying the same few sentences.

tashippy Wrote:you could watch the Nodame Cantabile drama and observe 竹中直人さん／Stresemann's imitation of a foreigner (German, in this case). Of course that's just comedy and not really instructional.

partner55083777 Wrote:Thanks. Is there a specific episode I should watch? Or does this happen throughout the whole series?

weirdo Wrote:I gave it a shot, but it's hard to do bad stress with good accent and vice versa, and my American accent might sound a bit stereotypical since I don't really know how to properly fake it (I'm a Japanese American)

partner55083777 Wrote:I think I need to practice listening more. I couldn't tell the different between 2) and 4)! :-( Also, I could tell that 3) and 4) are totally different, but I wasn't able to tell that 3) has good accent. It's hard to hear it over the stress.

Can other people on this forum tell right away that 2) is bad?