Quote:
Originally Posted by Malkuth
Check also the Talk page of that article, as well as how sketchy its sources are... IMPE from living in their country and using their language; yes, there is different pitch in Japanese, but its less consistent with dialects and kanji meanings, than individuals and their mood... we had a similar discussion over おう versus おお last year, and I stand corrected... pronunciation differences are at best random... the fertile ground for phd tax-wasters  |
To be honest, I never bothered learning the pitch accents (because its pretty difficult to do), and have never needed to know them either. I was however, taught (told, and now read, on different occasions) that a structure to distinguish words with pitch accents exists within the language. Even if its not used that much, it is there as a legitimate, documented part of the language. I don't think its archaic either, the few people (IMPE living there as well) I talked to about this did tell me that this was the way you would differentiate between words.