I've been reading through that forum post. Some people are saying that it's not important to study pitch in Japanese. Alex makes this brilliant post in response:
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.
I can't agree with this more.
