Japanese Phonetics Episode 62—now with native recordings!
Added 2019-05-20 04:54:29 +0000 UTCBibliography
Japanese Phonetics Index Page
Good afternoon Patrons! The sixty-second episode of Japanese Phonetics is live, now with high quality native recordings! In this lesson we discuss three important rules for determining the pitch-accent of common first names.
As always, if you have any questions or concerns with regards to this lesson, please don't hesitate to leave a comment below. Thank you very much for your continued support, and good luck with your Japanese studies!
Best from Beppu,
Dōgen
Comments
Hi, Ryan. This is actually an interesting question that will take a little more research. I should have an answer for you later in the week.
Dogen
2025-06-23 01:48:08 +0000 UTCHi, Vincent. JP here, Dōgen's business partner. I'm helping manage the messages here on Patreon. I need to apologize for the very late reply; I somehow missed the notification for your question. I ran this by Dōgen and this is what he said: "For names, I referenced the resources mentioned at the beginning of the video—the first resource (the Shinmeikai Accent Dictionary second edition) is probably your best bet for what you're looking for. I'd prefer not to give a blanket recommendation for 4-mora 2-kanji names, as I've done that in the past with other topics only to realize later that I was being overly generic. That said, the Shinmeikai Accent Dictionary does cover these to some extent, so I'd recommend checking it out if you're seeking specific answers. (I purposely avoided covering this in detail because I felt it fell into diminishing returns territory.) As for Chinese first names in Japanese, I haven't come across any information on their pitch accent patterns, so unfortunately I can't help with that aspect." I hope this helps! Thank you very much for your continued support, and best of luck in your studies!
Dogen
2025-06-17 01:01:59 +0000 UTCThese are nice patterns, but the part of speech rule seems tricky. How would we know that a name like Tadashi (spelled 正 or 忠) came from 正しい and not just 正す (or vice versa, that のぞみ is from 望む and not 望ましい)
Ryan
2025-06-15 04:00:29 +0000 UTCHi Dogen! At the end of this video you mentioned that the rules for 4-mora 2-kanji names are very difficult and complex: out of curiosity are there any resources for this? For these names should we stick to the-3 rule as a rough guide? Also are there any rules for the pitch accent of Chinese first names in Japanese?
Vincent K
2023-12-29 20:54:33 +0000 UTCPerfect. Thank you!
Alex Johnson
2020-12-09 01:54:33 +0000 UTCHi Alex, yes if you can't see any kanji then I would try to rely on the rules in this lesson. Cheers!
Dogen
2020-12-09 01:52:22 +0000 UTCOkay, no problem. I'll just try to make sure to remember how people say their names when I meet them. But one last question regarding this: if someone writes me their name in hiragana and I can't see the kanji would it be wrong to assume and use the rules and focus on the sound outlined in the lesson (i.e. I get an email from someone named たけし and when I meet him I pronounce it TA-keshi). It's so interesting for me as I would normally pronounce this Ta-KEH-shi (like most native English speakers, I suppose).
Alex Johnson
2020-12-09 01:32:43 +0000 UTCHi Alex, no worries. Names can be a bit tricky because the rules are considerably different (some are based on word origin, some are based on sound, some are based on just number of mora) so it's difficult for me to comment on this any further without saying something I may realize is a mistake later. I apologize for this, but hope the above advice and the advice in the lesson as well proves to be beneficial. Cheers!
Dogen
2020-12-09 01:22:34 +0000 UTCThanks for the reply, Dogen. This was mainly referring to the first name lesson above so I'm assuming most name kanji--if different--will have vastly different meanings.
Alex Johnson
2020-12-09 01:12:36 +0000 UTCHi Alex. Unfortunately while most of the time (from what I can tell, anyway) a difference in kanji won't change the pitch, there are times when it can. For example, while 熱い and 暑い (variants of 'hot') share the same pitch pattern, 厚い (thick) is different from both of these, despite the fact that they are all あつい. Thus, my general rule of thumb is that if the meaning is very similar then generally the pitch-pattern is the same, but if the meaning is fundamentally different, then it's usually best to double check the pitch manually. Naturally, it might not hurt to double check the pattern in question anyway, if you're a bit more cautious. Hope this helps!
Dogen
2020-12-09 01:08:31 +0000 UTCHi there, curious if there would be cases where the kanji referenced in the lesson isn't one of the ones mentioned but the sound is. Do the standard rules still apply? Thanks very much.
Alex Johnson
2020-12-08 06:08:16 +0000 UTCAppreciate the kind words Craig!
Dogen
2019-06-18 23:06:03 +0000 UTCThis is way less messy than I assumed it was going to be. Sure it's not as clean but since you always recap at the end i don't have to worry about long winded content when looking to review a topic.
Hannah
2019-06-18 21:37:38 +0000 UTCI’ll be looking forward in anticipation!
greyface
2019-05-21 02:32:45 +0000 UTCHi Arthur, I plan on covering combined names, as well as words such as さん、ちゃん、君, etc in not the next lesson but the one after that. I'll definitely be covering numbers and dates in the near future as well. Cheers!
Dogen
2019-05-21 02:18:41 +0000 UTCTwo questions. How do last and first names combine in terms of the pitch accent pattern? I imagine they don't follow the traditional noun pitch-accent rule. Will you cover this in your next video? Second question is, will you make a video that covers the wonderful word of numbers and dates and how the pitch accent changes depending on how the numbers combine? I've only started studying this myself and have noticed a few patterns, but my knowledge is still very incomplete
greyface
2019-05-20 18:48:49 +0000 UTCNot Dogen here, but I hope you won't mind! Compound names ending with the や sound (e.g. 也・弥・哉) are traditionally heiban, but for a while now the tendency has been to pronounce common names of this kind as atamadaka. So, basically, the rule of thumb I personally use is: if it's a classical name, such as 力弥 (a character in a kabuki play) or 文弥 (a 17th century puppeteer) I read it as heiban, but if it's a common name that's still used (or even only used) in modern times, such as Naoya, Kazuya and Tetsuya, I read it as atamadaka. Source for all this: the Shin Meikai Nihongo Akusento Jiten and its wonderful appendix of rules
Enrico Paolini
2019-05-20 07:33:53 +0000 UTCThanks Dogen! Curious if there's a rule for 3-mora 2-kanji names ending in a や sound? 哲也 (てつや） or 陽也 (はるや) etc.? (no sweat on skipping this question if typing is too difficult - don't be making it worse!)
Miles Gard
2019-05-20 06:13:49 +0000 UTC
