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Japanese is not weakly tonal, that is a giant myth. While the accent patterns have regional variations, if you intend to actually communicate in Japanese beyond
by marcan_42 6y ago
Japanese is not weakly tonal, that is a giant myth. While the accent patterns have regional variations, if you intend to actually communicate in Japanese beyond ordering stuff at restaurants, you are going to sound very awkward if all your pitch accent patterns are wrong. There are many homophones only differentiated by pitch accent too, which can get really confusing.
Not teaching pitch accent is one of the greatest failings of most Japanese courses and textbooks.
- howlgarnish 6y agoSure, it's a thing, but the average adult learner of Japanese, especially if monolingual English speaking, will have far greater trouble with vowels (short vs long), the "r" sound, glottal stops (especially ん), etc. By the time you've mastered all this, you'll also pick up the basics of pitch just from exposure. Japanese also abounds in perfect homonyms and context is almost always enough to distinguish "captain" from "enema".