finnishrakas

[finnishrakas]

Japanese Pronunciation Series #6 - Japanese Pitch Accent

Japanese Pronunciation Series #6 - Japanese Pitch Accent

What is Pitch Accent?

Pitch accent refers to a characteristic of language where every syllable can be pronounced with a high or low pitch. Pitch accent is considered different from the concepts of stress and tone that appear in English and Chinese, respectively.

English: Stress Chinese: Tones Japanese: Pitch

Pitch in the Japanese Language

Pitch accent varies widely from region to region in Japan. As Japan started to have contact with other countries in the Meiji period, they decided that a “standard language” needed to be established. The Japanese spoken in Tokyo is now known as “standard Japanese,” or hyōjun-go (標準語) in Japanese. The examples of pitch accent provided below are based on “standard Japanese.”

About Pitch Accent

Some assert that English has over 30,000 syllabic sounds. In contrast, Japanese has only 111 (112, according to some linguists). In other words, there are very few “sounds” in Japanese, and as a result, there are many homophones (i.e., words that are spelled the same but have different meanings). These homophones can be confusing. In written language, it is easy to tell the difference between homophones if kanji characters are used. In speech, we use pitch accent in order to differentiate between homophones to avoid misunderstandings.

Example:

Characteristics of Japanese Pitch Accent

■ There are only two levels of pitch - high and low.

■ Pitch does not change in the middle of a syllable. In Chinese, there are tones that go from low to high or high to low in the middle of a syllable. This does not occur in Japanese.

■ First and second syllables cannot be the same pitch. If the first syllable is high, then the second one must be low. If the first syllable is low, then the second one must be high.

Example:

In this example, the pitch changes from the first syllable to the second. These two syllables cannot be the same pitch.

■ We cannot use high pitch more than once in the same word. In other words, once the pitch falls, it cannot go back up again.

For Example: The pronunciation [ mi↑tsu↓bishi ]　cannot be　[ mi↑tsu↓bi↑shi ], [ mi↓tsu↑bi↓shi ], or [ mi↓tsubi↑shi ].

■ The pitch of a word can change depending on what comes after it.

For Example: [ ka↓nada ]     [ ka ↑ nadajin ]              (Canada)       (Canadian person)

Why we should learn about Pitch Accent

So why is it important to learn about pitch accent in Japanese? Here are a couple of important reasons.

Reason #1: To be able to tell the difference between homophones

For Example:

Reason #2: To be able to tell where a word starts

For Example: The word niwatori (にわとり) could mean “chicken” or “two birds.”

[ ni↑ watori ] ＝ “chicken” [ ni↓ wa ] ＝ “two” (counter for birds) [ to↑ ri ] ＝ “bird”

If it is pronounced as [ ni↓ wa to↑ ri] the listener knows that this is two words, since once the pitch falls it never goes up in the same word.

On the other hand, the pronunciation [ ni↑ watori ] indicates that it is one word. If tori were a separate word, the pitch of to and ri would be different because first and second syllables cannot be the same pitch.

[finnishrakas]

 I’ve heard the finnish word omaiset being translated to mean both “kinsmen” and “loved ones”, though in finnish it’s used as a blanket term for anyone close to someone, especially spouses and family. The word is used in legal terms, omainen is someone who could for example expect to have claim for a share of someone’s inheritance, or custody of a minor.

 The word comes from the word “oma”, which as an adjective means someone’s own, private, personal, owned by someone who needs to be defined in the sentence. The -nen is a diminutive.

 The word never specifies shared ancestry or fond feelings. You don’t have to love them, nor be related by blood. The word doesn’t even specify whether you own them or they own you. They’re just your people.

[finnishrakas]

The only 4 finnish moods

[finnishrakas]

Audio books in Nordic languages

Here’s where you can buy and listen to books in Nordic languages, but for some sites you have to use that country’s credit card

Icelandic:

Hlusta

Hljóðbók

Storytel

Penninn

Forlagið

Norwegian:

Ebok

Storytel

Lydbokforlaget

Fabel

CDON

Bokklubben

Danish:

eReolen

Mofibo

PolitikenBooks

Saxo

Swedish:

Storytel

Ljudböcker

Adlibris

BookBeat

Bokus

Nextory

Finnish:

eKirjasto

BookBeat

Storytel

Adlibris

Celia

[finnishrakas]

Finnish Numbers - Ordinal Numbers

Examples: Numbers

Nominative.

Minä ostin kolme kirjaa.   I bought three books.

Minä olin sairaana kaksi viikkoa.  I was sick for two weeks.

Genitive.

Minä opiskelen kolmen ystävän kanssa.  I study with three friends.

Partitive.

Minä opiskelen vain yhtä kieltä. I study only one language.

Hän puhuu kahta kieltä.  He speaks two languages.

Minä harrastan kolmea taistelulajia.  He does as a hobby three kinds of martial arts.

Mennään ennen yhdeksää.  Let’s go before nine.

Elative.

Minä pidän kahdesta urheilulajista.   I like two types of sport.

Nukuin kuudesta kuuteen eilen.  I slept from 6 to 6 yesterday.  

Illative.

Minä jään töihin kuudesta kymmeneen. I will stay at work from 6 to 10.

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Examples: Ordinal Numbers

Nominative.

Ensimmäinen asia, jonka haluan sanoa on ’tervetuloa’.  The first thing, that I want to say is ’welcome’.

Tänään on viides päivä joulukuuta.  Today is the fifth of December.

Partitive.

Me olemme menossa lomalle Australiaan ensimmäistä kertaa.  We are going on holiday to Australia for the first time.

Liisa menee naimisiin kolmatta kertaa.  Lisa is getting married for the third time.

Odotan neljättä bussia.   I am waiting for the fourth bus.

Inessive.

Minä asun kolmannessa kerroksessa.  I live on the third floor.

Adessive.

Sinä olet neljännellä luokalla nyt, etkö vain?  You are in the fourth grade now, aren’t you?

Illative.

Minä menin hissillä viidenteen kerrokseen.   I went to the fifth floor using the lift.

[finnishrakas]

possibly relatable russian learner things

everyone you speak to thinking that the alphabet is the hardest part

the alphabet is not the hardest part

always using the wrong verb of motion. no matter what.

everyone thinking you want to become a spy

the hesitation before deciding whether the verb you want to use is imperfective or perfective

if a concept appears easy, you just haven’t read all about it yet

verbs of motion are still hell

spending far too long transliterating everyone you know’s names into cyrillic

numbers suddenly being the bane of your life

realising you complained about numbers when you learned french but at least these ones didn’t take cases

reading russian literature and watching all of your knowledge vanish as you cry over obsolete case endings and adjectives referring to nouns that aren’t even there

every single fucking concept being more complicated than necessary

having to know endless amounts of grammar to be able to say the tiniest things

verbs of motion are still hell

thinking you can spell until you remember the spelling rules exist

consonant mutation

[finnishrakas]

I saw yesterday in Prisma a book Matti in the Waller - “Matti kukkarossa” and other adventures in Finnish language nightmares. I immediately thought about you @lily-learns-finnish! 

The book has got Finnish idioms with English and Finnish translation, together with an explanation of the idiom and illustration. My favorite was Piru merrassa - Devil in the fish trap. Explanation; Shit is about to happen!

[finnishrakas]

[finnishrakas]

Litter Movement vocabulary in Finnish

Read more about Litter Movement here!

Roska päivässä liike - Litter Movement Yksi roska päivässä - one piece of litter in a day Roska - piece of litter Lasinsiru - shard of glass Tupakantumppi - cigarette butt Roskakori - trash bin Miniroskis - mini bin Roskapussi - trash bag Roskapihdit - trash pick, trash grabber Kerätä - to pick up Siivota - to clean up Kierrättää - to recycle Suojella - to protect Ympäristö - environment Luonto - nature Eläin - animal Kaunis - beautiful Roskaton - litterless, litter free Siisti - clean, neat; cool Puhdas - clean, neat, tidy, unpolluted Turvallinen - safe Vapaaehtoinen - volunteer; voluntary

[finnishrakas]

"vielä vähemmän" -

"much less" / "let alone"

Hän ei osaa edes lukea ja vielä vähemmän kirjoittaa. - He can't even read, let alone write.

[finnishrakas]

People who think culture doesn’t influence languages structurally—and that languages represent a worldview in itself—need to get it together.

There’s a whole paper out there on how Gawwada’s grammatical space is molded by the fact that the speakers live on a mountain side; to provide an example (assuming anyone other than myself on here has heard of Gawwada).

[finnishrakas]

[finnishrakas]

Fun trivia about Finnish language (and Finland in general) part 2

Finnish is the only European language in which normal text contains more vowels than consonants.

All Finnish words have their main stress on the first syllable.

Finnish has vowel harmony, which means that a non-compound word can only contain either front vowels ä, ö, y (pöytä, käpy) or back vowels a, o, u (auto, ruska). The vowels e and i are neutral and can mix with all other vowels (keittiö, aitaus)

Oscar Wilde said “Finnish is easy. You will learn it with no effort at all in 400 years”.

Finnish has a vocabulary. The basic dictionary of Finnish has somewhere around 100 000 words, but that’s only the core of the language, the words that are unlikely to disappear. Finnish dialect dictionary has around 350 000 words. WIth the countless possibilities with compound words, some people have even dared to say that Finnish has “an infinite number of words”.

B, C, Q, W, Z, X and Å are in Finnish alphabet, but they are very rarely used, as they can be replaced by other letters (C with S or K, Q with K, W with V, Z with ts, X with ks, and Å with O). B is the most common of these, but sometimes it turns into P.

The letters mentioned above are, however, used in internet slang, hopefully ironically.

When Finnish is pronounced wrong, it’s jokingly called “hoono soome”, a bastardization of “huono suomi”, “Bad Finnish”. Most of often used when a non-native speaker uses the language.

Emo means (animal) mother in Finnish.

Hella means stove in Finnish.

When meeting a foreigner or traveling abroad, Finns often try to teach them their language. This is not to share the wonders of Finnish, but our world domination plan of destroying other languages.

[finnishrakas]

Apologizing in Finnish

Based on this handy list :)

En tee sitä enää. - I won’t do it again.

En tarkoittanut sitä. - I didn’t mean that.

Olen pahoillani siitä, että olen itsekäs. - I’m sorry for being selfish.

Pyydän anteeksi, että olin sinulle ilkeä. - I apologize for being mean to you.

Olen pahoillani. - I’m sorry.

Toivottavasti annat minulle anteeksi. - I hope you forgive me.

Otan täyden vastuun. - I take full responsibility. 

Haluaisin pyytää anteeksi. - I would like to apologize.   

Pidän huolen siitä, etten tee tätä virhettä uudelleen. -  I’ll make sure not to make this mistake again. 

Pyydän vilpittömästi anteeksi. - I sincerely apologize.   

Minun ei olisi pitänyt tehdä sitä. - I shouldn’t have done it. 

Anteeksi, että annan rahasi takaisin niin myöhään. - Sorry for giving your money back late.   

Älä ole vihainen minulle. - Please don’t be mad at me. 

Anteeksi että olen myöhässä. - Sorry I’m late.   

Se on minun syyni. -  It’s my fault.

[finnishrakas]

Being able to communicate with native speakers > Reaching a certain CERF level

[finnishrakas]

A friend of mine and I were talking about the Finnish language

Me: Finnish doesn't have gender specific pronouns, we only use 'hän' and it's completely neutral. Spoken Finnish uses 'se' but that's also neutral.

Friend: I thought 'se' was for inanimate objects?

Me: yeah, it is. We just use it because we're all dead inside.

[finnishrakas]

Finnish cartoons

Youtube channel with Finnish dubbed cartoons - could be good for some listening practice :)

Smurfs in Finnish