basics of pitch accent

Japanese uses pitch for its accent whereas English uses stress. When you pronounce an English word such as "student," the first vowel /u/ after /st/ receives a stress. You pronounce /u/ louder than other part of the word. (You are actually using a higher pitch for the streesed syllabl as well although you may not be aware.) Japanese uses two pitches, namely high and low. For example, the word "せんせい" (teacher) has a pitch pattern of low-high-high-low. The location where the pitch falls defines the location of the accent within a word. Thus, the accent of せんせい is on the third mora. It is possible for a word not to have any falling pitch.

Loudness should remain constant. You first need to develop skills to hear differences in pitch.

Standard Japanese (Tokyo dialect) follows two rules n its accent pattern.

1. A fall in the pitch may happen anywhere in a word, but once the pitch falls, it stays low.

2. The first two moras must have different pitch. (i.e. high-low or low-high)

The following list shows all of the possible patterns in standard Japanese for words up to four moras. Each sold blue circle represents a mora in a word, and a blue circle indicates a particle that is necessary to indicate accent patterns.

An red elbow in text indicates where a pitch falls.

One-mora words (two accent patterns)

The pitch pattern of a one-more word becomes clear when the word is pronounced in a sentence.