93085
When attempting to distinguish different pitch accents, what exactly am I
looking for?

I currently practice with <https://kotu.io/tests/pitchAccent/minimalPairs>

And I attempt to hear if the difference in pitch by thinking about how treble
or bass the pronunciation is. If it goes from Bass to more treble and stays
there for example, I think its heibangata.

Is there a better way of thinking about it? I feel like I've made no progress
in my time training to hear it, and am unsure if I'm even thinking about it
correctly.
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2022-01-22T00:32:13.633
93054
2022-01-23T01:57:18.603
48639
question
pitch-accent
Pitch Accent - What am I looking for?
# What to listen to

You should be listening for changes in the [fundamental
frequency](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_frequency):

> The fundamental frequency, often referred to simply as the fundamental, is
> defined as the lowest frequency of a periodic waveform.

While [formants](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formant) (aka harmonics),
also reflect pitch accent, they may be harder to follow due to fluctuations
from vowel shape, and certainly sometimes harder to identify in a spectrogram.

# How to best use the site

As for use of the linked site, I recommend first limiting it to heiban and
atamadaka only, until you can determine the difference between those two.
Maybe try some basic musical exercises in identifying lower vs higher pitched
notes if you’re having issues.

# How the types map to actual pitch

Also, since it seems like you are maybe having some issues with understanding
the types:

> 定か サ＼ダカ ＨＬＬ atamadaka  
>  斜め ナナ＼メ ＬＨＬ nakadaka  
>  車 クルマ￣ ＬＨＨ heiban  
>  頭 アタマ＼ ＬＨＨ odaka (note this is exactly the same as heiban, the difference
> only becomes apparent when something follows the word like a particle)

As you can see, the first mora starts low, then following ones are high, until
the downstep, and then stuff after that is low.

However, if the second mora is ン or ー, then the word will start high:

> 英語 エーゴ￣ ＨＨＨ heiban  
>  今後 コンゴ￣ ＨＨＨ heiban

Also, especially in the audio used on that site, heiban words said in
isolation will have a gradual drop throughout them, which is hard to represent
with just L and H, but you must learn to differentiate them from accents via
sufficient exposure. You could for example notate the audio for 英語 and 今後 on
that site as ＨＨＭ if you wanted.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-23T01:36:32.167
93085
2022-01-23T01:57:18.603
2022-01-23T01:57:18.603
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answer