Pitch accent perception

Below is a list of common words, sorted into categories based on their pitch pattern (heiban, atamadaka, nakadaka, odaka). For the sake of clarity, words whose pitch changes depending on usage/context have been excluded. For each of the four categories, choose the 20 words that you feel you hear most often in your daily immersion.

How to Practice

Deliberate practice is key to improving your pitch accent perception skills. Deliberate practice is anytime when you engage in a specific activity where you can either succeed or fail, and receive immediate feedback on your performance.

When practicing, the goal is to try to accurately identify the pitch pattern, then check whether you got it right or wrong. Engaging in this focused activity enhances your pitch accent perception skills.

You can create an environment where you practice pitch accent perception within your immersion. To incorporate deliberate practice into your language immersion routine, organize a word list divided into four categories. Each category is dedicated to one of the 4 pitch accent patterns. For each pitch pattern (heiban, atamadaka, nakadaka, odaka), select 20 words from the list of the most common words, and place the list near your computer or wherever you normally do your active immersion.

During immersion, whenever one of these words comes up, you pause, rewind a few seconds, and listen closely to the word, focusing on its pitch accent. Try to identify whether the pitch drops where it's supposed to drop. For example, if the word is odaka, you need to tell if it indeed sounds like odaka to you. You're trying to hear if it sounds like how it's supposed to sound.

Notes

• The pitch of words often change when they combine with other words to make compound words. For example, adding “~的” to a word will make the entire compound heiban, regardless of the original pitch of the word.
• When the particle “の” attaches to an odaka word that’s two or more mora long, the odaka word is treated as heiban. For example: “頭の中” = “アタマノ ナ↓カ”. 中 is atamadaka so the pitch drops after "な".