イントネーション – How to Improve your Intonation in Japanese

Repetition with Common words in Sentences

In Japanese and all languages, we use some words all of the time and some words we never use. Focusing on learning the intonation of the most frequently used words will help you improve your intonation quicker.

In order to learn these words try taking the most frequent words and making sentences out of them. Then learn the intonation of those sentences.

After you have your sentences go to Prosody Tutor Suzuki-kun. This is a website where you can search the intonation of sentences in Japanese. Put the sentences in the box and then you can see the correct intonation.

Shadowing Japanese Speakers

Whether it is YouTube, the news, Anime or whatever find some audio that you enjoy listening to. While you are listening try to mimic the people speaking by moving your mouth and imagining the sounds in your head.

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It probably would be better to just speak as you listen but that can be hard. If you are trying to speak at the same time it is easier to loose track of what you are listening to and start focusing too much on what you are saying instead of what you are hearing.

Listen to words that are pronounced the same but with different Intonation

There are several Japanese words that have the same pronunciation. There are fewer words though that have the same pronunciation but different intonation. They do exist though. One famous example is the three words below

端 (はし) No Accent
箸 (はし) Accent on the first syllable
橋 (はし) Accent on the last syllable

When you find words with the same sounds go to Forvo and search for the word. Then listen to the difference. Listen to the same words over and over until you can recognize the difference or lack of.

Listen to the same Words Spoken by Multiple Speakers

You can also go to Forvo to listen to several words spoken by different speakers. This is also a good way to improve intonation. Listening to the same word spoken by different speakers helps you to recognize it when it is spoken.

If you are interested in learning Japanese I have reviewed what I consider the best resource for Japanese Grammar below: