Timeline for How important is one's pitch when speaking Japanese?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
6 events
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| Feb 5, 2014 at 23:42 | comment | added | bright-star | This answer is hitting a lot of good points; especially the fact that inconsistent pitch (or pitch consistent with a non-native speaker's source language) is a shibboleth for non-native speakers. Even if it's not "Tokyo" pitch, it should at least match whatever dialect you're speaking in. | |
| Jun 6, 2011 at 12:42 | comment | added | Derek Schaab | crunchyt's on the mark here: pitch is only one aspect of proper pronunciation, and the "shape" of sounds is more important. I strongly believe the best way to learn shape and pitch is simply to expose your brain to as much listening practice (conversation, radio, podcasts) as possible. We all learn how to pronounce our native languages by imitating others, so why not do the same with a foreign language? | |
| Jun 6, 2011 at 4:49 | comment | added | deceze | @crunchyt I think "speaking foreign languages in their native pronunciation" is pretty much the problem, which is that the importance of stress/pitch should be reversed but isn't. Forming sounds incorrectly (especially vocals and らりるれろ) is of course another big factor. So it's the shared #1 reason, would you agree? ;) | |
| Jun 6, 2011 at 4:28 | comment | added | crunchyt | +1 for a good answer. However I would disagree that pitch is the #1 reason for bad pronunciation. Too many people don't change speaking style or the "shape" of their sounds. They speak in foreign languages as if they were no different from their native language. It's more to do with mouth shape, tongue position and the like than pitch. Japanese natives often mix up pitch related things, depending on where they come from, etc... and recovery strategies are often used (e.g. oh do you mean X as in XX or Y as YYY?) | |
| Jun 6, 2011 at 3:00 | history | edited | deceze | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 446 characters in body; added 59 characters in body
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| Jun 6, 2011 at 2:51 | history | answered | deceze | CC BY-SA 3.0 |