I'm working on a way to mark a text with pitch accent, so that while you read, a little mark would indicate, in a non-intrusive way, where the downfall occurs. I've searched and it appears that no publisher offers books/stories like this. I was wondering if there'd be any interest among other learners.

I would be, certainly. I think a substantial portion of Japanese learners would be ... judging by other pitch accent threads we've had, there is interest in learning about it, but it's really hard to get good materials on it. It's particularly hard to get materials for in-context pitch accent (there are, of course, dictionaries that mark pitch accent on a per word basis, which is useful, but not ideal.)

Ideally, I'd like to see a pitch-marked collection of short stories with accompanying audio - In fact, I really wouldn't have much use for pitch-accent marked texts that -don't- have accompanying audio.

Of course, there should also be a few pages devoted to charts and explanations - I think I have enough charts and explanations now, cobbled together from various links, but not everyone does.

(Although actually I still don't have the NHK accent dictionary, which I do want to get in an electronic dictionary or as software at some point, so ... I don't know if it pronounces words in isolation or has sentences. I may have been told which once before actually but I've forgotten.)

A lot of people worry about the pitch accent, but I wonder if having an entire text filled with accent marks is a good solution. English is a stress-accented language, yet is anyone aware of an book written in English that has every stressed syllable marked? I'd wager that listening, rather than reading, is more important for mimicking the Japanese pitch accent (although, a pitch accent marked text with an audio recording would be ideal!).

Just plugging a book related to the subject

1日10分の発音練習

vileru Wrote:A lot of people worry about the pitch accent, but I wonder if having an entire text filled with accent marks is a good solution.

Well, the key problem as a foreign learner, quite honestly, is learning to -recognize- pitch accent. An audio accompanied text would be great because it would hopefully be able to hold one's attention while reviewing the notation for a great many words, including pitch accent shifts with conjugation and with following suffixes and particles.

A marked text without audio... would be moderately interesting for a chance to look at patterns, but there would be so much waiting to hear similar phrases uttered that the utility would be severely impaired, I think.

It seems to me like stress accent should be -obvious- ... but I'm a native English speaker, so I don't actually know. Surely fully marked texts are only useful for poetry analysis as far as native speakers are concerned, but how useful they would be to a foreign learner, I really couldn't say since it is my native language.

vileru Wrote:A lot of people worry about the pitch accent, but I wonder if having an entire text filled with accent marks is a good solution. English is a stress-accented language, yet is anyone aware of an book written in English that has every stressed syllable marked? I'd wager that listening, rather than reading, is more important for mimicking the Japanese pitch accent (although, a pitch accent marked text with an audio recording would be ideal!).

First of all, I think I found a nice way to mark downfalls in a pretty non-intrusive way -- you could even ignore it if you didn't care.

Second, you are right about English except for one thing -- English stress is taught from day one. Every dictionary or source of information will mark the location of the stress. In contrast, finding the equivalent Japanese information is just about a nightmare. Not to mention that English stress is easier to remember because of the phonological changes that ensue.