Quote:
Originally Posted by Columbine
When we talk about 'stress' in Engligh, it's nothing to do with pitch. It's that certain words in a sentence, or certain parts of words are said more strongly than others. I can say 'photographer' in a flat voice, but it still has the 'tog' syllable stressed. Or I can say it in a crazy up and down voice but it still has all the emphasis on 'tog'.
does that help?
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I understand what you are trying to say here. What I do not understand is how this affected your answers when words were given all by themselves without any context. Among the ones you did not get correct, for exmple 町（まち）, the high pitch accent is on the ち. Were you putting the stress on the ま in your head
for any reason? Or how is it even possible to place the stress on the first syllable and the high pitch accent on the second?
It is the "musical" pitch (high vs. low) in Japanese words that is the counterpart of the stress (strong vs. weak) in English words. 町 is pronounced like "do-mi", not "weak-strong" as in the English word "delay".