Daichi Wrote:Knowing what pitch means is pretty simple. Knowing how the hell to control that factor of your voice is not.

It's effectively the same as singing. Each note is different because constriction of the vocal cords yield a different pitch. As for Japanese pitch per se, low and high are often quoted as being do and mi (or C and E), but this is only a guide.

@Daichi
Can you sing:
(1) do re mi fa sol la si do

Do it now. Done? Now do (while keeping the corresponding pitch from (1) and paying attention to the pitch and how it changes):
(2) re mi, re mi, re mi

Got it? Now do, repeating the same melody in (2):
ha shi, ha shi, ha shi

You have pronounced 橋 (in a Tokyo-ish fashion)

Now "sing":
(3) mi re, mi re, mi re

and again change this to "ha shi", while keeping the melody from (3):
ha shi, ha shi, ha shi

You did 箸.

And now try to say:
箸が橋にある。 There are chopsticks on a bridge. (ok, maybe better not 'cos you need to watch AlexandreC's video to do it right. )

I'm not Daichi, but I had a similar problem with pitch.

If Daichi is anything like me, than describing pitch in relation to singing is not going to help. I can't sing. At all. Not even a little. I can't hear pitch and I can't reproduce it. If you ask me to sing "do re mi fa sol la si do", I might be able to say, "do re mi fa sol la si do", but pitch-wise you'll probably be hearing something like "do do -1ti re sol sol ti ti".

My suggestion to Daichi is to get a native speaker to correct you. I've spent multiple hours over multiple days working with native speakers on correct pitch. I am now to the point where I can hear it if I'm specifically listening for it. I can also usually mimic it. But I still don't get it right if I'm talking on my own. And I still can't sing at all.

It's a tough process if you have no musical ability :-\

If you wanted to learn pitch in general, I would recommend taking singing lessons. Your teacher should correct you on things like this. I've often thought about doing this, but I don't have the money/time/motivation.

there are pitch changes in English too, like rising intonation at the end of a question. Listen to an Australian or Californian.

You don't need to think about or visualize the pitch going up and done. Just focus on imitating the sound. Try shadowing while you listen to stuff. Just regularly have conversations with people, and you'll start to pick up their speech habits, words phrasing and also pitch.

nadiatims Wrote:Just regularly have conversations with people, and you'll start to pick up their speech habits, words phrasing and also pitch.

I believe AlexandreC argues that this is not the case. From my personal experience (and seeing those around me), I will have to agree. There are a lot of people in Japan who are relatively fluent that don't use correct pitch. For some people, pitch can't be learned through immersion.

If I hear a word and try to mimic it as close a possible, would that suffice, or would I need to specifically train my ear for pitch accents.

Marble101 Wrote:If I hear a word and try to mimic it as close a possible, would that suffice, or would I need to specifically train my ear for pitch accents.

One should probably at least be aware of the basic pitch patterns and know that they do make a difference. Back when I wasn't aware of them I would work hard to perfectly reproduce the consonants and vowels, but I considered mimicking the native speaker's pitch contour about as important as imitating the timbre of their voice or the facial expression they are making when saying the words, i.e. totally irrelevant.

partner55083777 Wrote:

nadiatims Wrote:Just regularly have conversations with people, and you'll start to pick up their speech habits, words phrasing and also pitch.

I believe AlexandreC argues that this is not the case. From my personal experience (and seeing those around me), I will have to agree. There are a lot of people in Japan who are relatively fluent that don't use correct pitch. For some people, pitch can't be learned through immersion.

I would indeed argue that this is the case for 99% of learners outside of Japan.

In Japan, this will really depend on the determination of the speaker and the time spent there, but it's not impossible. And it does happen: for instance, Peter Barakan (host of Japanology) told me that he learned pitch by copying people, but he studied Japanese before going to Japan, has been living there for decades and he said he was always very careful to correct himself when his pronunciation was off.

Marble101 Wrote:If I hear a word and try to mimic it as close a possible, would that suffice, or would I need to specifically train my ear for pitch accents.

How do you know what what parts to mimic and what parts not to mimic? If I tell you "is that a dog?" and you learn to mimic dog, will you always say it with a rising tone? It takes a lot of exposure to determine which must be copied and which is flexible, and when it comes to pitch, most foreigners assume this up and down movement has to do with sentence level intonation when it's actually part of the word itself.