AlexandreC wrote:

Every teacher I ever asked told to listen and copy. I always understood that as and admission of ignorance.

Hmm, if you asked different teachers then it might be as you say LOL

JimmySeal wrote:

undead_saif wrote:

AlexandreC wrote:

Every teacher I ever asked told to listen and copy. I always understood that as and admission of ignorance.

Hmm, if you asked different teachers then it might be as you say LOL

Wait, that doesn't make sense.  Many teachers gave the same advice so the conclusion is that they all don't know what they're talking about?

When it comes to pitch accent, most teachers know nothing. So, yes, they all defaulted to the same answer because they had nothing better to say.

Incidentally, in my second or third class of Japanese 1 the teacher spent about 10 minutes explaining what it was (high and low), and then pointed in the textbook to the lines above words indicating the pitch. She then promptly realized the textbook had incorrectly given the pitch for akai. (The textbook had indicated "2" using lines above the word). However I don't think she is planning on ever mentioning it again. So at least it was introduced in my class.

AlexandreC,

Despite all your wonderful observations about pitch, I can't help but wonder whether you really learned pitch by reading about these rules, or if the reverse is true. ie. you're able to make these observations because you're able to recognize pitch for whatever reason (talent, listening practice).  I also wonder how well you're able to apply pitch consciously while speaking fluently. And how would you even know that your resulting pronunciation is good except by relying on your ears? As an experiment, try speaking english at a normal speed while deliberately misplacing the stress. It's not exactly easy, despite the fact that altering the stress placement on individual words is (I assume) something that any native speaker can do very easily.

There is a book called "drawing on the right side of the brain" which mentions something interesting. In it there is an exercise in which one is instructed to duplicate a picture which is observed upside down. By placing the picture upside down the brain becomes less aware of what the image is actually representing and is therefore better able to focus purely on replicating the pure visual data. Basically you 'see' reality more objectively and can therefore replicate it more accurately because you don't concern yourself with categorizing what you are seeing as predefined objects which have a predefined appearance and/or way of being drawn.

This is why I think pure listening practice is extremely powerful even if you don't understand a lot. Just listen to audio, and don't concern yourself with how it ought to be transcribed.