How important is one's pitch when speaking Japanese?

Question

I'm aware of some words in Japanese that have the same reading but different meaning depending on the pitch of each syllable. The canonical example is はし (hashi), which can mean either chopsticks (HAshi) or bridge (hashi or haSHI).

However, most Japanese language books I have come across ignore the concept of pitch completely, and vocabulary lists never tell you the pitch you should use.

How important is it to speak with the correct pitch? Can I be understood without knowing the pitch sequence for each word?

Answer 1

It is worth pointing out that in Japanese, different dialects use different accent patterns for the same word.

The Japanese language taught as a foreign language is most likely to be 標準語 (ひょうじゅんご), which is based on the Tokyo dialect. Therefore, probably the “correct” accent pattern to use should be that of the Tokyo dialect (as in your examples of はし). However, of course not every native speaker speaks the Tokyo dialect, and some dialects (such as Osaka or Kyoto dialects) have completely different accent patterns from that of the Tokyo dialect. As a result, I believe that using the “correct” accent pattern is not crucial to make yourself understood.

Answer 2

It is actually very much the same as homonyms in English. Consider the difference between
refuse |riˈfyoōz| and refuse |ˈrefˌyoōs; -ˌyoōz|. It sounds weird if you mix up the pronunciation:

I |ˈrefˌyoōs| to accept this.

It's bad English and identifies you as a non-native speaker.
If the context doesn't give enough hints as to which refuse you meant, it can even get confusing.

The Japanese difference between HAshi and haSHI is very similar. You should learn the correct pronunciation when you pick up a new word. Since Japanese has many more homophones than English, the difference can be crucial.

Western pronunciation differences are based on stress, while in Japanese it's based on pitch, which can be difficult to pick up for many western ears. That's the number one reason for bad "western" Japanese pronunciation (applying stress where non is needed and no pitch where it is) and "robotic English" spoken by Japanese (not applying stress where it is needed and applying pitch where it isn't). It is something you will have to practice until you can pick out and apply the difference naturally.

Answer 3

Two pointers :

Yoko Hasegawa, Against marking accent locations in japanese textbooks, Japanese-Language Education Around the Globe.

柴田{しばた} 武{たけし}・柴田{しばた} 里程{りてい}, アクセントは同音語{どうおんご}をどの程度{ていど}弁別{べんべつ}しうるか ---日本語{にほんご}・英語{えいご}・中国語{ちゅうごくご}の場合{ばあい} (Is Word-Accent Significant in Differentiating Homonyms in Japanese, English and Chinese?)

Abstract : To answer the question if word-accent is significant for differentiating homonyms, a probabilistic model is constructed and applied for real data. It is a binominal model for the number of key words in a set of homonyms, each of which generates a group of words with the same accent. The common probability of a keyword occurrence indicates how strongly homonyms are differentiated with word-accent, although the model fitting is good for Japanese but not so for either English or Chinese. The estimated probabilities are 0.1357, 0.0047 and 0.71 respectively for Japanese, English and Chinese, which are significantly different.

Answer 4

First of all, knowing pitch is not as simple as knowing the pitch on each word. There are many morphological endings that make pitch change on verbs and adjectives. For instance, taBEru becomes TAbete because -te will make the pitch shift to the 3rd mora from the end when the verb has pitch. Pitch also changes when 2 words or more form a new compound word (pitch is usually on the first mora of the second word). haYAi becomes HAyaku because -ku moves the pitch to the 3rd mora from the end. And so on.

It's true that different dialects have different pitch, but you have to understand that their pitch is part of a integral system -- if they say hashi with the opposite pitch, this is less likely to confuse the listener if the rest of the person's speech behaves the same way. In fact, there are even some rules that allow to predict dialectal differences.

I always tried to pay a lot of attention to pitch -- doing most of my research myself because it's very hard to find information at all -- and while I usually get it right, there are frequently times when I say a word out of context and I get confused looks until someone repeats the word with the right pitch. Almost everyone says it's not that important, and sure, it's not the end of the word if you get English stress wrong either, but in reality, it does frequently create confusion, and if you care about being understood well, I'd definitely pay attention to pitch.

Most Japanese people have no idea how pitch works because they've never thought about it. It's extremely difficult to find any information, and most dictionaries never mention pitch. But nevertheless, if you can find the right resources, pitch is worth the trouble.

Answer 5

It's still understandable without correct accents, most of the time, but if you were able to use the correct intonation, then you would gain better fluency in Japanese obviously. I sometimes check at this site to check the the correct accents.

For example for that chopsticks「箸」, and bridge「橋」

Answer 6

You will be perfectly understood even if your pitch isn't "good". In cases where there is an ambiguity, people will either infer the intended word or just ask for clarification. If you want to learn a pitch, you can buy pitch dictionaries like this one.

Answer 7

Really, the pitch accent for each word depends on dialects, but in general, it's not actually so hard to understand when somebody talks with different pitch accents, so maybe that's why many textbooks and dictionaries don't write much about the accent for each word.

I was born in Tokyo but had army service in Hokkaido. There, people referred to me as "kaWAsaki" instead of "kaWASAKI (standard Japanese)". When I used to live in Hiroshima, people often were like "Dude, you're supposed to pronounce it like this instead of that (although I talk in the Standard Japanese)". The point is that different accents sound funny, but somehow we understand them.

The words you use are actually more important than the accents since when let's say, my grandma (from Kyushu) said "Tempura is ready", I ran to the kitchen but then got disappointed from realizing that she was mentioning the so-called "Ganmodoki (in Standard Japanese)" instead of the famous tempura. The problem here was from the vocab she used, not the accent.