Mastering Japanese Verb Intonation with Minimal Pairs

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Japanese pitch accent helps distinguish words through pitch variations, but different people debate how important it really is.

Some suggest learning it early in order to prevent bad habits, recommending “shadowing” to mimic native speakers and improve pronunciation and listening.

Others believe that since many natives understand learners despite pitch mistakes, it is not so important.

While opinions vary, most agree that awareness enhances comprehension and speech naturalness, making listening and repetition valuable for fluency.

My opinion is that it is very important, and you definitely should learn it from the beginning. Preferably through audio, but even through text is fine. The reason for this opinion though is because I learned Japanese without Pitch-Accent, and had trouble going back to learn it later on. Honestly though, you can become fluent without it, and it is unlikely that you will become fluent without any sort of intuitive sense of Pitch-Accent.

But, it is one of those things about Japanese that will greatly help those people you are talking to, in order to understand what you are saying comfortably. So, getting it right from the beginning will make everyone happy.

INDEX

My Experience with Pitch-Accent

I spent my first two years learning Japanese primarily through reading and writing, with some exposure to spoken language from local Japanese speakers. While I could pick up some spoken Japanese, my comprehension was poor.

Back in the early 2000s, my dictionaries didn’t mention pitch accent. Despite that, my pronunciation and rhythm were decent when I arrived in Japan, improving over the year I was there—except for pitch accent. I vaguely noticed it but didn’t think much about it since I was picking up words naturally through conversation. I assumed I was being understood, though in reality, I often misheard people and was sometimes misunderstood.

English relies heavily on volume, stress, and rhythm for meaning, while Japanese is more monotone, making it harder to distinguish words. Pitch accent plays a crucial role in breaking up speech, making sentences more comprehensible. Without it, spoken Japanese can sound like an indistinguishable stream of sounds.

Since I learned Japanese without pitch accent awareness, some words I picked up were incorrect in their intonation. Correcting this later was difficult, requiring not just memorization but also retraining muscle memory for natural speech. I can now use correct intonation when I focus on it, but old habits sometimes resurface.

For new learners, the best approach is to mimic native intonation from the start to avoid ingraining mistakes. If, like me, you’ve already developed incorrect habits, you’ll need active practice—listening, shadowing, and repeating correct intonation in real contexts. One method is memorizing the pitch accent of common words using frequency lists, though this can be tedious.

A more efficient approach is learning general pitch accent tendencies and focusing on minimal pairs—words differing only in intonation. Verbs, in particular, are crucial since they define sentence meaning. Most Japanese verbs follow two patterns: no accent (平板型 / heiban-gata) or an accent on the second-to-last syllable. Shorter verbs are more likely to be heiban, while longer verbs tend to have an accent.

Keeping that in mind, I created the following list of 2 syllable or 2 mora verbs. These are lines of minimal pairs where the first verb or verbs before the → are not accented, and the ones after are accented on the second to last syllable. Since these are all two syllable words, that would be the first syllable.

Spending your time memorizing these verbs will save a lot of headache for any language partner you are speaking with later on.

Dictionary Form (辞書形)

買う (kau, to buy) → 飼う (kau, to keep animals)
欠く (kaku, to lack) → 書く (kaku, to write)
着る (kiru, to wear) → 切る (kiru, to cut)
汲む (kumu, to scoop up) → 組む (kumu, to assemble)
咲く (saku, to bloom) → 裂く (saku, to tear apart)
する (suru, to do) → 擦る・刷る (suru, to rub/print)
突く (tsuku, to thrust) → 点く・付く・着く・吐く (tsuku, to be lit/attach/arrive/spit)
鳴る (naru, to ring) → 成る・生る (naru, to become/to bear fruit)
寝る (neru, to sleep) → 練る (neru, to knead/elaborate)
穿く・履く (haku, to put on footwear) → 吐く・掃く (haku, to vomit/sweep)
拭く (fuku, to wipe) → 吹く (fuku, to blow)
振る (furu, to shake) → 降る (furu, to fall [rain/snow])
巻く (maku, to roll) → 蒔く・撒く (maku, to sow/scatter)
盛る (moru, to heap up) → 漏る (moru, to leak)
止む (yamu, to stop) → 病む (yamu, to be ill)
居る (iru, to exist [animate]) → 射る・煎る (iru, to shoot/to roast)
減る (heru, to decrease) → 経る (heru, to pass through)

Te-Form (〜て形)

Next, below are more verbs, but in the Te-form. These are verbs that in the dictionary form are pronounced differently, but in the Te-form are the same sound, except for intonation. Again, the verbs before → are not accented, and after → are accented on the first syllable.

〜って Form

う-Verbs

追って・負って (otte, to chase/to bear responsibility) → 折って・居って・織って (otte, to break/to be present/to weave)
買って・刈って (katte, to buy/to cut) → 飼って・勝って (katte, to keep animals/to win)
吸って (sutte, to inhale) → 擦って・刷って (sutte, to rub/print)
沿って (sotte, to follow along) → 剃って・反って (sotte, to shave/to warp)
舞って (matte, to dance) → 待って (matte, to wait)
盛って (motte, to heap up) → 持って・漏って (motte, to hold/to leak)

つ-Verbs

売って (utte, to sell) → 打って (utte, to hit)

る-Verbs

足って (tatte, to be sufficient) → 建って・発って・経って・立って・絶って (tatte, to build/to depart/to pass time/to stand/to sever)
鳴って (natte, to ring) → 成って・生って (natte, to become/to bear fruit)
塗って (nutte, to paint) → 縫って (nutte, to sew)
貼って (hatte, to stick) → 這って (hatte, to crawl)
振って (futte, to shake) → 降って (futte, to fall [rain/snow])
寄って・因って (yotte, to approach/due to) → 酔って (yotte, to get drunk)

いて Form

穿いて・履いて (haite, to put on footwear) → 吐いて・掃いて (haite, to vomit/to sweep)

して Form

着て (kite, to wear) → 来て (kite, to come)

んで Form

ぬ-Verbs

飛んで (tonde, to fly) → 富んで (tonde, to be rich)
呼んで (yonde, to call) → 読んで (yonde, to read)

Why Does Pitch Accent Matter?

For non-native speakers, pitch accent mistakes may not always cause confusion. But, it is one of those skills that are much easier to learn correctly instead of trying to relearn it. If you are reading this article though, likely you may have not learned it correctly. Not all is lost and through dedicated effort focusing on specific words, you can slowly correct this over time.

Good luck, and for more about Japan, Japanese, grammar and intonation please check out some of my other posts. Thanks! Ganbatte!