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   川音리오＠かわねすきー (rio@kawane.misskey.online)'s status on Friday, 23-May-2025 10:11:27 JST 川音리오＠かわねすきー

   Although it is not written in standard Japanese orthography, mimi (ears) and Mimi (name) have different pitch accents in Japanese. Mimi (ears) has a Low to High pitch, while Mimi (name) has a High-High pitch. I have seen many Japanese learners who complain that their "perfect" Japanese is not understood by the natives when in reality their Japanese is simply skewed and broken as much as their glasses...
   
   tl;dr: Pitch Accent is Important!!
   
   RE: https://misskey.io/notes/a83n3g6fzkne0e86

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     G🦡Monkey (greasemonkey@misskey.resonite.love)'s status on Friday, 23-May-2025 11:01:13 JST G🦡Monkey

     in reply to

     @rio@kawane.misskey.online Huh, the "name" one isn't in the infamous NHK dictionary... the "ears" one is specifically accented on the last (2nd) mora (おだか).
     Not sure what you mean by "high-high" in this instance, isn't that more-or-less exclusively a Kansai pitch accent thing? Usually the """flat""" (へいばん) accent is denoted "low-high"... as per おだか as well, which make it confusing when a particle is attached.

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     川音리오＠かわねすきー (rio@kawane.misskey.online)'s status on Friday, 23-May-2025 11:07:23 JST 川音리오＠かわねすきー

     in reply to

     • G🦡Monkey

     @GreaseMonkey@misskey.resonite.love
     I was writing them in L-H notation, but writing out the whole words without abbreviating it. So like, 耳("ears") is L-H and ミミ(Mimi, a common name) is H-H... Or, that's what I thought when I wrote that post. I didn't put much thoughts into it but yeah I see the mistake now; H-H pitch does not exist in Japanese as it seems. Huh. When I say the sentence 「馬のミミに念仏」I thought I was saying う(L)ま(H)の(L)み(H)み(H)に(L)ね(L)ん(H)ぶ(H)つ(H), but now that you mention it, it seems that I am actually saying う(L)ま(H)の(L)み(H)み(L)に(L)ね(L)ん(H)ぶ(H)つ(H) without even realizing it. I guess that's why they call L-H the "flat" accents huh? Because most native Japanese speakers can't even perceive the L-H pitch change at the beginning of a word. I'm a donut pancake, this is a H-L pitch (頭高型; "Head high") not a "flat" L-H pitch...
     
     Yeah that was completely my error... I guess I really do need to study my own language huh?

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     G🦡Monkey (greasemonkey@misskey.resonite.love)'s status on Friday, 23-May-2025 11:21:07 JST G🦡Monkey

     in reply to

     @rio@kawane.misskey.online Well, if we're being pedantic, the H-H accent does exist in the Kansai pitch accent family, e.g. I think かんけい（関係）is H-H-H-H. (You might even know exactly what phrase I learnt that tidbit from!)
     But back to the Kanto-style pitch accent (also used around Fukuoka but the rest of Kyuushuu tends to either be accented or use a different two-tone accent and I know people in both categories)... From what I've looked up, stuff which is へいばん and おだか tends to not go as high as stuff which accents on any of the other moras. So it's, uhh... let's just say that if a native English speaker wants to feel how irrational English pronunciation is, they could always study Japanese pitch accent - guess a word's pitch accent and you'll be amazed how often you get it wrong!

     川音리오＠かわねすきー likes this.
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     G🦡Monkey (greasemonkey@misskey.resonite.love)'s status on Friday, 23-May-2025 11:21:07 JST G🦡Monkey

     in reply to

     @rio@kawane.misskey.online The example I tend to use for the irrationality of pitch accent: 調整 / ちょうせい is へいばん/"unaccented", and 微調整 / びちょうせい is accented on the ちょ (thus なかだか).

     川音리오＠かわねすきー likes this.