Why you can't hear Japanese pitch accent

Hit the link above to download my free gift to you, the 10 most common words for all 4 pitch accent patterns.

[mattvsjapan]

Hit the link above to download my free gift to you, the 10 most common words for all 4 pitch accent patterns.

[Dogen]

"You're actually going to be really surprised—once you can hear pitch, you'll notice how bad your pitch is"
just @ me next time bro

[ryusuzuki]

A born-and-raised-in-Japan English learner here. Thank you so much, Matt and Ken, for creating those unputdownable videos. This comment is for sheer appreciation and a request for your channel. A min read.

I’ve watched all of Matt’s interviews with other high Japanese achievers, Atsu, and even an authentic linguist like Stephen Krashen and several videos on pitch accent. Without studying abroad, I’ve been into American English for years in Japan. And it’s been a massive help for me to get numerous insights into language acquiring.
(ex. I was petrified when I first heard that Matt had got to consciously start tackling pitch accent even after the years of natural immersion because I’ve been immersing myself into English almost the same way as you said you had done. I guess you can totally relate to this, but I was like, Jesus Christ, is it even possible that I’m sounding weirder than I think I knew? What have I been doing, you moron!! I immediately googled and dug up information on the pitfalls self-taught English learners can fall into, and started consciously paying way much more attention to natives’ rhythm, speed, stress, etc when listening and shadowing.) I guess I’ve got to achieve the next phase for now, which I wouldn’t have done without your videos. And I’m sure I’m getting further because of your channel. I can’t thank you enough.

p.s. Your Japanese is fantastic. Matt vs. Japan is evidently one of the most underrated YouTube channels of all time. I’d appreciate it if you could shoot a video discussing the so-called Affective Filter Hypothesis with Ken because it is so far the worst enemy that I can get to know its existence. It will be another gripping video for other subscribers and me if you kindly share how you guys have been dealing with the filter and overcoming it.
Thank you for reading this far. Hope I see you around in Japan or the US after this messy pandemic.

[icanfly]

As a native Japanese speaker I can guess what the word is just by hearing the “hummed” versions in the video :)

[aimickelson]

I’m a pretty new student - started self-study a little over 5 months ago and now at N5. This seems like an accomplishment, but my main goal is speak with Japanese friends, so I’m focusing most of my efforts on input these days instead of academic reading / writing.

This was a very clean way of describing pitch accent! Originally, I discarded the idea of learning pitch accent because it seemed too advanced. After all, my primary focus is learning vocab and grammar. However because pitch accent is similar to music, I noticed pitch has helped my listening abilities. I’ve been casually memorizing pitch patterns while I hear new vocabulary in movies/tv. It is has become another way for me to grab on to words when spoken, much like word order helps me identify words. I’m not sure if anyone else has had this experience.

[ghostrookie]

As a Mandrin Chinese native speaker, I've been using Matt's imerssing method learning Englsih for the past few months. I used to watch tons of anime so I'm not completely unfamiliar with Japanese this language. I just found really interesting that it seems like mandrin native speaker would find learning pitch accent not that hard?(I'm not sure since I'm not learning Japanese) I feel like I can natrually hear and imitate the pitch accent when you guys analyzing the whole pitch accent system. This has been an interesting experience when hearing you guys talking about this topic. I wonder if it would be easier for mandrin Chinese neative speaker to pronounce the wrods since we have the concept of "tones".

[airi]

Great idea to separate the pitch study from actual words. I always understood pitch accent as just “the vibe, ” and this is a wonderful way to structure learning to develop that melodic/vibe intuition :) Cheers!

[TheManWhoDestroyedTheWorld]

It's been 5 days since I watched this video (just finished all 4 patterns in the top 40 deck) and I already feel the difference! I can't thank you enough for all you've given me, Matt. I really don't know where I would've been with my Japanese now if it wasn't for all the knowledge that you shared. You're a real treasure to the language learning community. It even helped me improve my English a little bit 😀
THANK YOU, MATT!

[bimtucklez]

Wow, thinking of it like a melody really made a huge difference. I would always end up saying it louder, but humming out the patterns and trying to say the word seems to be really helpful. Thanks so much for the deck!

[AJGress]

This is probably one of your best videos so far. I have been following you since 2017 or so, when I just started studying Japanese. It's great to see how the quality of your content has gone up, not only in terms of editing but also your charisma and professionalism. Looking forward to seeing more!

[速水もこみ]

Hi matt! I'm Japanese🎌 and I'm interested in your channel. I guess every Japanese says this so, Im sorry to say this but how you talk in Japanese was crazy amazing!😁 And I think that is showing us who you are. I can tell, you studied hard.
Im proud that I found your channel today👏
Im Mokomi, nice to meet you😊

[alrensantoine]

I knew about pitch and stress accents, but this is the first time I realized how stress accent in English definitely plays a part in parsing a sentence not only in what words are being said, but what the sentence means. I imagine pitch plays a similarly important role in Japanese.

[s.w.t.m.t.s.u]

THANK YOU MUCH MATT, been trying to find a video like this for a while

[misterguyman]

This is just what I needed. Your recent content has been on fire!!

[nyfxe]

I am highly looking forward to the highly valuable work you both will be creating together.

[kkuwura]

Tihs was an AMAZING explanation of how to do different pitch accent patterns. The analogies you gave, with the person wearing different clothes, also made perfect sense and I could see were well thought out. Usually it's kinda hard to explain concepts in a language to a speaker of another language when they have totally different frameworks of looking at things, but I feel like you translated the idea of a pitch accent pretty well for me. You finally explained to me in a concise way what's the difference with pitch accent and stress accent. Amazing

[MagicalCrackdown]

Wow! I'm not even trying to learn Japanese, I'm trying to learn Czech, but this video was still immensely helpful with identifying native speech patterns, pitch, and sentence structure. With native speech, it's easy to disregard such fundamental things like this and just focus on words and vocab. Keep it up, guys! You're inspiring language learners of all shapes and sizes! Even though I'm studying Czech, I still love your Japanese videos, keep it up!

[WhatIveLearned]

Best/most fun explanation of pitch accent I've seen so far

[xnon]

The anki deck is a great idea!
Thanks a lot for all your amazing contributions to the immersion learning community!

[Mikaela_Westmt]

Native Japanese here🇯🇵
Never seen/heard of Japanese pronunciation taught this way, and I'm so impressed and blown away with what you guys have started doing together!
It's been over 160 yrs since Japan's national isolationism / closed-door policy ended, lol (in freakin Edo period), it would be great to see more gaikokujin speak "fluent Japanese" pitch accent wise, hehe. (don't think I've ever come across anyone until I found you guys, Dogen, and Nyk from Nyk channel on YT, tbh)
Many times I heard them say Japanese is difficult but its pronunciation is flat and pretty easy ...and in my mind I've always been like...um..NO.
If Japanese pitch accent is taught in the right and effective way, like how you do it, it might not be so difficult after all - this is so innovative and original!
Lucky 100 ppl who will be participating!