furrykef Wrote:They also don't start with dictionaries, SRS systems, or anything of the sort. I'd like to see somebody truly learn a foreign language the way a child does, with no external help, just listening to and reading the target language. I heard of somebody doing such an experiment, and having some success, but he had to put a loooot of hard work into it. Children don't... they just DO it, without thinking about it.

I don't use dictionaries, unless there's a word I urgently need to use or understand (e.g. in e-mail conversations), and I use an SRS sparingly. And my language studies are progressing fantastically.

The more you intellectualize a language in the early stages beyond a certain, very minimal point, the more it will impede you from actually learning to use the language. You don't learn to ride a bike by studying gear mechanics. You don't learn to play a guitar by studying wave dynamics. If you thought you had to keep track of every detail while taking part in those activities, you'd never make it down the street, or to the end of a C scale.

Learn the language first. Then work on the details.

This whole notion of children just picking up a language effortlessly holds no water for me. I have two children who grew up speaking English and I can tell you from experience that kids put a LOT of time into learning language, and LOTS of effort. They are speaking/hearing the language all the time, from family, friends, TV, everywhere. They are surrounded by it. They try to speak, they are corrected. They try to speak they are corrected again, they have sentences repeated and repeated until they stick. Everyone speaks to them in that language, everyone is a native language teacher to them. They don't have to turn off their computer or stop the Japanese language tapes to go to school or work, they don't have spouses. They are just surrounded by the language. Ever watched children play? See how much they talk, even when alone? Children spend YEARS working 15 hours a day on their language. Khatzu does a similar calculation on his AJATT website, but just consider that if a child spends 15 hours a day speaking/hearing their native language for four years (between ages 2-6), that's nearly 22,000 hours of study. Children might, and I stress MIGHT, be able to learn languages faster than adults. In the hard work department, however, they are far ahead.

JimmySeal Wrote:I don't use dictionaries, unless there's a word I urgently need to use or understand (e.g. in e-mail conversations), and I use an SRS sparingly. And my language studies are progressing fantastically.

Considering that you're on a site that's about Remembering the Kanji, which is a very artificial and non-native-like method for learning the kanji, I'm having trouble believing that you're learning Japanese solely through listening and reading. It's perfectly possible that you're doing that now, but I mean from the beginning.

timcampbell -- the thing is, until they go to school, children don't really work specifically on language. They put effort into it, but the effort is not deliberate. Their minds are not focusing on the language, but rather, they're focusing on whatever it is they want to do. Sometimes they just want to talk, but they don't talk to learn language, they talk to discuss things they want to talk about. The language is just a means of doing that.

Anyway, I'm tiring of this discussion. Let's try to get back on topic and actually talk about pitch accent again...

JimmySeal Wrote:Learn the language first. Then work on the details.

I don't consider pitch accent a mere detail.

- Kef

Wow. People are wigging out about this a bit.

I've been studying Japanese for a long time, and honestly, it's really not something you can learn from a book. My beginner textbooks (Nakama) had them written out, but honestly, I could never make much sense of the rules and markings.

I think memorizing the pitch rules are a bit like memorizing a bunch of grammar rules. They don't do a whole lot for you when you're trying to participate in a conversation, because you don't have time to stop and think about how to construct a sentence. You just have to go by instinct. Keep your books and stuff around for reference, but basically you have to learn what sounds natural and then trust your gut (it'll probably be right!)

Kef, I know you said that you're leery of watching things until your skills get a bit better, but it never hurts to start. And if you're just worried about pitch accent, I wouldn't worry too much about how much you can grasp understanding-wise, as it's more about learning what sounds natural. And I know it's against AJATT or whatever method everyone's following these days, but turn on the subtitles if you have to for understanding - just be sure to listen to how things are said and phrased, and don't just focus on what the subtitles say. Heck, I watched drama with subtitles for a long time and I don't feel that it hindered me any learning-wise. You can turn them off again when you feel your vocab is at a level that you can follow things with out them.

shneen Wrote:I think memorizing the pitch rules are a bit like memorizing a bunch of grammar rules. They don't do a whole lot for you when you're trying to participate in a conversation, because you don't have time to stop and think about how to construct a sentence.

Actually, studying Spanish grammar helped me a lot with that language. Obviously, I don't stop to think about grammar when I speak or write (unless I'm really stuck), but understanding grammar helps me get to that point. I can even correct the grammar of native Spanish speakers sometimes and be certain that my corrections are correct, something I couldn't do if I never studied grammar and learned solely through absorbing native speech/writing. (Of course, I still do make mistakes in Spanish myself.)

Also, I would like to reiterate this point because it kind of got lost in the earlier discussion: understanding pitch accent helps you hear pitches correctly. I haven't studied pitch accent all that much and it still has made a huge difference. Subtle differences become more obvious when you know how the pitches go. "Oh yes, that mora is lower in pitch..." So I think if you want to do it by ear, having a book understanding of pitch accent can still aid you in doing that.

I still don't understand what exactly is so hard about learning where pitch accents go from written resources, though. I wouldn't memorize a long list of rules by rote; I would still learn from sentences in context. But I would still want to know how those sentences are pronounced, and sometimes it helps to know why they are pronounced that way (like how mi-SE-ru becomes MI-se-te; I think that rule is helpful, and I don't find it hard to either understand or remember). Again, when I put sentences without audio in my SRS, if I don't already know the pitch accents then my only choice is to make a guess and possibly pronounce it incorrectly when I read the sentence aloud -- which is bad, bad, bad. All that would do is reinforce incorrect pronunciation. It's quite easy to fall in that trap, too... who would have guessed that "hotel" in Japanese is pronounced "HO-te-ru" and not "ho-TE-ru" or "ho-TE-RU"?

- Kef

furrykef Wrote:understanding pitch accent helps you hear pitches correctly.

That's a perfectly reasonable thing. Understanding is certainly useful, only memorizing may not be worth the time.

furrykef Wrote:Actually, studying Spanish grammar helped me a lot with that language.

Eh. I wasn't saying don't study grammar or don't read up on pitch accent. Written resources ARE important, but what I was getting at is that you can't rely purely on your written resources alone. And maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but you seem to want to ONLY have a written resource for accent, which seems a bit counter intuitive to me. You can learn your guidelines, but eventually, you're going to have to let exposure do the rest.

I don't think any of us are saying that having a written resource around is a bad thing. It certainly helps when you second guess yourself, and yeah, handy if you're not doing any listening. And if you want them for your sentences, fine. BUT the guidelines will only take you so far... they're a bit of a crutch if you will.

I've studied Japanese for 6 years, and honestly, I couldn't rattle off any of the rules that were posted in the PDF earlier. I couldn't tell you why it's mi-SE-ru and MI-se-te... nor do I really even care why. I've had enough exposure to the language that my brain can automatically do these things without thinking. I think most people posting here have just been trying to encourage you to start with the listening and let your brain figure it out, because it makes things a bit easier in the long run.

shneen Wrote:And maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but you seem to want to ONLY have a written resource for accent, which seems a bit counter intuitive to me. You can learn your guidelines, but eventually, you're going to have to let exposure do the rest.

Actually, I've said many times in this thread that listening is essential. You can never learn proper pronunciation of any language from a book alone. But there are two parts to learning pitch accent: picking up how it actually sounds (which can only be done by ear) and knowing where the accents go (which does not require hearing pitches).

Let me put it this way. I study Spanish, right? Despite how little I've practiced listening and speaking in Spanish, I can pronounce any Spanish word -- any word, whether I know it or not -- correctly just by having it spelled for me. I may not pronounce it with a native accent, but if it is spelled correctly, I will pronounce it with the right general sounds and even with the right stress, because Spanish spelling is very phonetic and it marks for accent. And when I write, I can put the accents in the correct places, and when I speak, I can put the stress in the right places, because I've learned them by having the accent marks everywhere. Why would Japanese pitch accent be any different?

- Kef

furrykef Wrote:It's quite easy to fall in that trap, too... who would have guessed that "hotel" in Japanese is pronounced "HO-te-ru" and not "ho-TE-ru" or "ho-TE-RU"?

This is where know at least a couple of rules would come in handy. The basic rule for 2-3 mora 'gairaigo' is that the first mora is high, and the rest are low (頭高型).
ジャム(HL)　ショー(HL)　クラス(HLL)　ケーキ(HLL)　セット(HLL)

Wordings anything in an elongated sound are the exception, and tend to be influenced by their original accent (although all the examples in my dictionary for this were just LHL).
グレー(LHL)　タブー(LHL)

There's obviously going to be some other exceptions and things that change (some people have started pronouncing メール HLL, rather than LHH), but from flicking through the book it seems to hold up for a majority of case. It gets more complicated after 4+ mora, but this one is relatively simple and easy to remember.

I think if you just keep that in mind, and give it a little practice (in combination with listening), the rule will just intergrate itself and you won't be thinking about when you're speaking, you'll just be using it.

Without entering into this debate, I thought people interested in the pitch accent of Japanese might find this paper interesting. It claims that there are several perceptions that native Japanese people have (and teach) about pitch accent in their language that aren't actually true when observed objectively.

I just thought this was interesting. I don't necessarily endorse the content.

Deon

I'm well familiar with that essay... in fact, I'm rather surprised it wasn't brought up sooner. This isn't the first time I got myself into this kind of debate.

It's quite possible that the article is correct, and native perception of the phenomenon doesn't accurately describe it. In fact, it's quite common for people not to fully understand such things until they are analyzed in that fashion. I'm not sure that's terribly relevant, though, because I intend to pick up the "how" part of pitch accent by listening to native speakers. By imitating them, I should imitate their habits, whatever they are.

Just to be clear: despite the article's title, I agree with its essential premise: "This paper argues that marking accent locations throughout a textbook, without further explanation of how pitch accent is realized in Japanese, does not aid, but can hinder good pronunciation." The key is in that "without further explanation of how pitch accent is realized in Japanese". The paper doesn't actually argue against marking for accent, but rather says that merely marking for accent is not enough, which I agree with. It's not enough to see accent, you must hear it, practice it, imitate it.

But that goes back to my distinction between knowing how accent works, which is what that article is talking about, and knowing where the accents go, which that article does not really discuss much other than arguing that it's useless to know where the accents go if you don't know how accent works, which, again, is true.

Of course I disagree with its ultimate conclusion that marking pitch in books is "a complication at best", but I don't think its arguments apply to me very well. For instance, one of its major points is this:

The article Wrote:It is frequently observed that in order to make students mark accent locations correctly, the instructor of Japanese uses cues such as loudness, which are not conventional in Japanese. And it is almost always the case that instructors read words with unnatural, stepwise high and low pitch, e.g. to(L)sho(H)ka(L)n(L), when they test students' ability to detect pitch accent. Through this kind of training, students cannot improve their ability to detect accentual patterns in naturally uttered sentences because no native speaker speaks Japanese in such a way.

That will not be a problem for me because I won't have any teachers around to pronounce anything in such an exaggerated fashion. I'm sure that the people who record audio for books like Japanese for Everyone are simply instructed to speak normally, not "make sure you pronounce the pitch accent very clearly" or anything.

- Kef

While we're on topic again, I figured I would post this link: http://genki.japantimes.co.jp/reso/onchou.html
It might be useful for those interested in pitch accent, especially if anyone here is using Genki. I hope it proves helpful.

shneen Wrote:And I know it's against AJATT or whatever method everyone's following these days, but turn on the subtitles if you have to for understanding - just be sure to listen to how things are said and phrased, and don't just focus on what the subtitles say. ... You can turn them off again when you feel your vocab is at a level that you can follow things with out them.

I second that. It's a lot more helpful to watch Japanese media with subtitles than not watching it at all. The more audio exposure you can get, the better. Additionally, you must consider that Japanese TV is made for the Japanese people, so you get real language input, not the slowed down, unnatural speech you find in language tapes. Now, I'm not saying language tapes are bad, they have their place in my own study routine, but Japanese TV also has. In the end, what I'm trying to say is that watching Japanese media is not going to help only with pitch accent: it's going to help with the language in general. Just be sure not to do only that (i.e. watch animes and doramas all day) and hope to learn the language.

Yo Furry, you probably dont have any experience with children. They suffer a lot to learn the language. And they someway use SRS. When a kid learns a new word, he/she uses it all the time. It is sometimes a pain in the ass -> wich you gotta respect and admire.

The reason children manage to learn the languages are their parents. Its been statisticaly shown that a kid must be exposed during 30% of its waking time to a language to properly aquire.

The idea that kids learn languages faster than adults is a myth, helped by anunfair advantage of having parents to teach the language.

mentat_kgs Wrote:Yo Furry, you probably dont have any experience with children. They suffer a lot to learn the language. And they someway use SRS. When a kid learns a new word, he/she uses it all the time. It is sometimes a pain in the ass -> wich you gotta respect and admire.

I still remember a bit what it was like to be a kid. (Granted, not the earliest years.) I made my share of mistakes. In particular, I distinctly remember saying "I buyed it!" instead of "I bought it!" But I don't recall putting all that much conscious effort into it. It wasn't like receiving a language lesson. And yes, kids do love to use new words and find places to put them in. (I remember meeting a child who overused "actually" because it was a new word for him.) But they don't do that out of a conscious effort to learn the language; they just do that because it's instinct. They're curious about new words and new concepts, and they try 'em out 'cause it's fun. Nobody ever forces 'em to do it, and they don't feel any obligation to... they just do. At the very least, they have a sort of motivation for language learning that I think adults simply do not have.

It's also worth noting that children do not have the problem of interference from their primary language, since what they're learning is their primary language. By contrast, all second language learners have to face this interference, no matter how naturalistic their learning method is, because it's simply impossible to temporarily (or permanently ) forget your native language while studying and using a foreign language.

- Kef

(EDIT: Looks like the post I was responding to was deleted while I was responding to it...)

sutebun Wrote:Rule #137 of debating foreign language learning online:

When the thread gets past page 2, it begins to be a waste of everyone's time.

To summarize: Jimmy is pretty spot on (as usual) and all this time could have been spent improving your Japanese.

True, but I'm a born debater. And, as I said in my initial post, I'm annoyed that most people just don't pay much attention to pitch. That will continue to be the case if awareness of it is not raised.

Most of this stuff about whether adults learn like children do does seem largely irrelevant, though. Even with an AJATT-style approach, you're still not learning in exactly the same manner a child does. And most of us here obviously use Heisig, which is certainly not learning a language the way a child does!

Quote:I don't think I'm wrong (I may be), but Japanese pitch does not affect rhythm. Usually that will be affected by the number of mora.

It does not affect rhythm in the sense of time, no. However, I would say that pitch accent has rhythm in a different sense of the word. The rising and falling in pitch gives each sentence a sort of "flow". So a rhythm can be perceived even though each mora has the same length.

Quote:In other words, while improving your pitch accent in Japanese will net improved comprehensibility, it's not the same leap as it as for stress in English. You will also still get a far way without practicing pitch consciously. You will probably also unconsciously improve pitch as you just simply practice Japanese.

Or you could also develop bad habits if you don't develop it correctly from the beginning. If you study written materials more than spoken materials (as I will) and you don't mark for accent, that's an easy trap to fall into. Someone on another forum said they have spoken Japanese for 10 years and they're still trying to get over the bad habits they have with their own pitch accent.

- Kef

A lot of good arguments from many people in this thread and this one is the best:

sutebun Wrote:Rule #137 of debating foreign language learning online:

When the thread gets past page 2, it begins to be a waste of everyone's time.

To summarize: Jimmy is pretty spot on (as usual) and all this time could have been spent improving your Japanese.

In fact, I am rarely seen to agree with Jimmy-senpai but in this case I do, whole-heartedly. Amazing how people are capable of creating obsessions out of smallest points...

furrykef Wrote:And, as I said in my initial post, I'm annoyed that most people just don't pay much attention to pitch. That will continue to be the case if awareness of it is not raised.

That will continue to be the case because some people are capable of naturally capturing an accent (and need no or almost no theoretic reinforcement of what they hear and are able to reproduce, let alone - look up accents for EVERY word) and some people will never get even close to sounding native - and no amount of bookish knowledge or (sadly!) even listening and imitating will ever help them. Of course, people in the last category WILL improve a bit... But a tiny bit only - that will typically be only noticeable to them.

furrykef Wrote:Or you could also develop bad habits if you don't develop it correctly from the beginning. If you study written materials more than spoken materials (as I will) and you don't mark for accent, that's an easy trap to fall into. Someone on another forum said they have spoken Japanese for 10 years and they're still trying to get over the bad habits they have with their own pitch accent.

I actually don't have a noticeable accent in Japanese but would gladly swap places with anyone who has a bad one if that were to become my ONLY problem with the Japanese language... As it stands, I (and most people I hear) have too much to fix before any accent becomes a real problem and that is what worries me so much more.


But let's not stop those determined to overcomplicate their lives - after all, everyone functions in a different way.

Since I've had several different native speakers quite randomly tell me my accent is good (seriously, we were enjoying the view out of the guard tower in Kumamoto-jyou, and suddenly she says something about my skill in something in Japanese. I didn't know the work for accent, but she whipped out a nice denshi jisho and showed me), so forgive me if I decide not to get intimately involved in this debate.

But for the record, I second Serge's post.

Yeah, less time arguing, more time studying.

Ok, I lied... I do have something to add.

This trick works quite well if you're a guy: lower your voice a bit and mumble a little. Any native will understand you easily and you'll be praised for your excellent Japanese.

Sorry ladies, I don't have any 'quick and dirty' pronunciation tips for you.

Speak in an artificially high pitch all the time and make a little affirmative noise to yourself after every sentence?

A trick that works in any language-- refer to yourself in the 3rd person.

QuackingShoe Wrote:Speak in an artificially high pitch all the time and make a little affirmative noise to yourself after every sentence?

Haha, yeah, there we go! That's a pretty good tip for female speech!

And don't forget to end everything with "wa"!

Gods I wish I could take the compliments I get seriously. Being told my Japanese is very good after just saying Good Afternoon has already worn on me.

Anyway, about pitch, I think it's very important in singing in Japanese, but I've not the faintest clue how you'll master it studying out of a dictionary. I just listen a few times, practice with a kanji/kana sheet then goto karaoke. I really, really hope that the compliments I get for karaoke are sincere (but I always have my doubt). Eh, ego.

Granted, I never stressed the stress mark in English even when it was being pushed in English class. And the schwa? Forget about it. As said before, we're all gonna go about it in our own way. Hopefully in a way that works.

Yo Furry,

You should separate your spanish learning from your japanese learning.
You can't compare learning japanese with spanish.

English and spanish are just too similar!

Portuguese and spanish are very close to each other.
I'm a native portuguese speaker, that I believe it is even easier to learn than spanish.

Portuguese is a language that when you read a word, you can pronounce it. There is little influence from the context. All the rules for the pronuntiation are in the writing system and they are so simple that we learn by the age of 9.
Spelling is not that easy, but it is easy.
When I had 10 years old, I was already ready to read books writen for adults, and I did read some.

Also, I've seen german people learn portuguese in 6 months.
I know some japanese and chinese people that learned perfect portuguese in less than 2 years -> just well enough to pass the admission tests of our universities with rates of 30-40 candidates per seat.

I think the problem with all of us who subscribe to the Heisig method is that we're so used to "the establishment" telling us that what we're doing is stupid and a waste of time, even when it obviously works, that it's easy for us to slip into a place where we equate being told that we're wasting our time to being on to the next big thing. Sometimes, though, the establishment is right, and the lone visionary going up against the world is really just a kook.

Not to say that you're a kook, Furry, just that maybe the people who are telling you to listen to lots and lots and lots more Japanese might be right. Maybe if you want to develop good habits from the beginning, you should focus on listening from the beginning, even if that means only listening to the cadence and rhythm of the language, rather than the content. You talk about not developing bad habits, but how could attempting to produce the sound of a spoken language through nothing more than accent markings and a list of rules that are broken as much as they're followed do anything but?