Tae Kim's Guide to Japanese Forum - Guys, what's the difference between the high and low pitch?

Re: Guys, what's the difference between the high and low pitch?

2007-08-11T09:42:13Z

Bubblebath: 面白い問題でしたねぇ。
BTW, do you pronouce these identical words in the following sentences with the same tone?
Like,
そん時はそん時だよ～。
ついてるときは何してもついてるんだよ。

Re: Guys, what's the difference between the high and low pitch?

2007-08-11T01:58:09Z

Heh, it's the spectrum of the sound over time (for both left and right channels). near the bottom of the channel is low frequencies, top is high (about 2.5kHz). Grey is near-silence, the from blue (low) through red to white (high) intensity. The fundamental frequency is down around 100Hz, but some sounds, particlulary the 「い」 (just to the right of the highlighted section) have quite distinct harmonics (multiples of the fundamental). When the ripples curve up, the fundamental is rising in pitch, and when the curve down, the fundamental is dropping.

[edit]btw, the image is a bit bigger than what fits nicely in the forum.

Re: Guys, what's the difference between the high and low pitch?

2007-08-11T01:37:55Z

What... is... this? I can't get head nor tail from that graph! You should be a genuis to read it., huh?

Re: Guys, what's the difference between the high and low pitch?

2007-08-11T01:14:15Z

I too have noticed that Long vowels (particularly おう) has a distinct drop. However, going by audacity's spectral plot, that's not always the case:

The above is the man in one of the JLPT sample tests saying 「十一番」, where the highlighted segment is 「じゅう」. You can see the tone rising from 「じゅ」 to 「う」.

Re: Guys, what's the difference between the high and low pitch?

2007-08-11T01:01:58Z

Well there is Japanese people here but they're all like "Japanese.....um....konnichiwa?" however, i know lots of korean people who can speak Japanese.

Re: Guys, what's the difference between the high and low pitch?

2007-08-11T00:57:08Z

How about NHK?

Re: Guys, what's the difference between the high and low pitch?

2007-08-11T00:49:10Z

Here, where I live (Not Earth!), it's almost impossible to see a Japanese (Living here for more than 5 years, I think I saw a total of 0 Japanese people.). So, speaking to a mate, etc. in Japanese while I'm here should be sort of a dream. I believe radios I found on the net are musical. I don't wanna' sing, I just wanna' speak, you know. So, in other words, where on Earth (This time, I mean Earth.) can I find a radio (online.) which broadcasts News, Scientific programs, etc., not songs?

Re: Guys, what's the difference between the high and low pitch?

2007-08-11T00:41:17Z

*THE ANSWER"

1)柿　牡蠣
2)紙　神
3)寝ろ　ネロ
4)飼う　買う
5)二本　日本
6)型　肩
7)鮭　酒
8)夜　寄る
10)八木　山羊
11)買った　勝った
12)クラブ(部活)　クラブ(ダンスフロア)

Re: Guys, what's the difference between the high and low pitch?

2007-08-11T00:23:03Z

Trying to memorize/analyze pitch accents is the path to insanity. Definitely be aware that there is such thing as High and Low pitch, but beyond that you should just listen and repeat as much as possible - it must be something you picked up by ear, otherwise you won't be able to accurately reproduce intonation and pitch accurately in conversation yourself.

Re: Guys, what's the difference between the high and low pitch?

2007-08-10T20:28:30Z

Pitch only exists in mandarin final particles (also known as "tone 0") does not exist in cantonese, but in Shanghaiese is used along side with tones for everything.

Re: Guys, what's the difference between the high and low pitch?

2007-08-10T20:24:53Z

taekk wrote:

This thread was so interesting, I created a quick blog post.
http://nihongo.3yen.com/2007-08-11/comp … ges-tones/
-Tae Kim

Read through it, interesting and I definitely agree. There are a bunch of other patterns in 標準語 accent that you can learn to increase your chances of getting a given word correct.

verbs / i-adjectives:
The accent is 0 or on the second last mora (there are a few exceptions)

nouns:
Japanese ones are unpredictable
Chinese ones are nearly all 0 (all?)

Re: Guys, what's the difference between the high and low pitch?

2007-08-10T20:20:00Z

Ainotenshi: There's a fundamental problem in what you propose: it is 100% meaningless to anyone else but you and moreover likely meaningless to anyone who doesn't speak Croatian. Standards exist for a reason.

Scout: No worries We all have those moments.

Re: Guys, what's the difference between the high and low pitch?

2007-08-10T20:17:45Z

This thread was so interesting, I created a quick blog post.
http://nihongo.3yen.com/2007-08-11/comp … ges-tones/

-Tae Kim

Re: Guys, what's the difference between the high and low pitch?

2007-08-10T20:16:52Z

Faumdano wrote:

No, I'm saying exactly what I wrote. The accents are on 2 and 1 in those two words as he spoke them:
にほ↓ん HHL
に↓ほん HLL

Oops... sorry about that. I think my brain is fried .. for someone reason I was looking at those and thinking they were each two moras when they're clearly not. I blame it on being a Friday afternoon

Re: Guys, what's the difference between the high and low pitch?

2007-08-10T20:08:06Z

Now how would that work? Same but different pitch...hmmm