I haven’t lived in Japan, so I can’t say for sure – again, I wish native speakers could come and comment…
Alexandre, If a speaker has every sound of Japanese down to a T he/she is also likely to have properly imitated the intonation, stress, pitch, whatever you want to call it. It is unlikely that a person learns just one aspect of pronunciation. It seems to me that we learn pronunciation by assimilating chunks of the language, short phrases, long phrases, even sentences. Whatever pitch there is would just be naturally absorbed.
I agree that it can be useful to teach this, but I don’t see how you can claim that it is important. I suspect that the majority of very fluent, close to native sounding, non-native Japanese speakers do not bother with pitch.
In school, Japanese students have to mark down stress accents in their English studies, and they are tested on that as well. It doesn’t mean students actually learn to speak stressed English. It doesn’t. Only massive exposure accomplishes that. But marking down stress accents probably helps. I use to include it in the flashcards I made.
I was just talking with my girlfriend about this topic, and she confirmed that everybody knows about pitch accent, but probably not everyone knows the term 高低アクセント. But everyone knows that sounds can be high or low and that this differs from place to place. There are schools in Japan for people who want to be professional speakers - narrators, MCs, announcers, etc. - and one of the things they have to learn is the standard accent.
Apparently, as well, the speech of young people has been getting flatter and flatter. It’s not something that I really noticed, but apparently that’s a trend now in Japan.
As for the “kinosheeta” vs. “kinoshta” thing, that’s something that can be pointed out early in someone’s study, and I believe Colloquial Japanese dealt with that as well. It’s something that people just may not notice on their own.
Generally, I think it’s good to be aware of these linguistic phenomena, provided the explanations of them are simple and clear. I think Alexandre did a good job making a simple video. Even though you can’t sit down and “learn” pitch accent, it’s certainly better to be aware of it than not - provided the explanation isn’t scary 
In a sense, we’re lucky. Standard Japanese is pretty accentless compared to many dialects. If standard Japanese had been based on the Kyoto accent, we’d all be having a hell of a time - comparatively speaking. and we’d have to make a much bigger deal about pitch accent if we wanted to sound reasonably normal when speaking standard Japanese.
A more interesting question would be, to what extent do non-native speakers of Japanese acquire the regional pitch accent patterns of the regions in which they live.
And, finally, despite living in Japan for a long time, and knowing about the phenomenon of pitch accent, I still find it difficult to hear clearly. I had my gf give me some examples pronounced with different pitch accent patterns and I found it really difficult to concretely pick out the differences.
Nevertheless, if you’re used to Tokyo Japanese (like I am) and you go to Osaka and mix with some Osaka folks (as I have) you’ll probably have a lot of trouble understanding the conversation around you - ie, when Osaka folks talk to each other. Part of that is because some of the vocabulary will be different, but a big part is because the pitch accent is different and this will throw you off, even if you don’t consciously realize that that is the reason.
I know a few Canadians, including one of my employees, who lived in the Kansai. They speak with Kansai pitch, and do so very well. I had a lot of dealings with people in the Kansai and when with them I would naturally start speaking more like them, with their intonation. I am occasionally asked by Japanese people if I lived in the Kansai, since some of this influence has remained with my Japanese accent.
Interesting. I was out with some folks in Osaka once and I had tremendous difficulty understanding people when they spoke to each other. But when they spoke to me, I could understand them just fine. It was really weird, and I don’t have that experience in Tokyo. It was also in a bar, so that may have had something to do with it… Actually, come to think of it, it’s only really in Osaka that I’ve had that experience. It didn’t really happen in other cities, even other cities of Kansai.
I think it’d be cool to hear foreigners speaking with real proper Kansai pitch. Strictly speaking, the pitch accent is different in different parts of Kansai, but still.
At this point, several questions were raised which can only be resolved by native speakers:
Are Japanese people aware of pitch?
Do most learners who have ignored pitch but lived and studied hard in Japan have a noticeably foreign accent as a result?
Do learners of Japanese who learn to pronounce all the sounds well necessarily also get pitch right or do some people get all the sounds right, yet still get the pitch wrong?
Do Japanese people think it is important for foreigners to learn pitch? If they learn correct pitch, will they notice?
To what extent do non-native speakers of Japanese acquire the regional pitch accent patterns of the regions in which they live?
Steve said:
“I know many fluent non-native speakers of Japanese, many of whom have excellent pronunciation.”
“They speak with Kansai pitch, and do so very well.”
But Steve, how can you tell, as a non-native speaker unaware of pitch?
Bortrun, from what I understand, Oosaka people are very confident about how they speak and dare speak their dialect in the presence of others – when they turned to you, they probably switched to Standard Japanese. On the other hand, speakers from other cities may have spoken Standard all along. Of course, I can only guess…
The Osaka people that I spoke with always spoke in the Kansai lilt.
Alexandre, that’s what I figured. But I think in most cities, people speak in their own accent. Osakans keep their accept when they come to Tokyo, unlike most Japanese, but when people are in their home cities, I don’t think they avoid their own accent. For example, I didn’t have those problems in Hiroshima, and I don’t think the people around me all switched into standard japanese when they were speaking to each other simply because a foreigner was there - particularly the people at the next table who I didn’t know! Maybe Osaka accent is just hard
To clarify, I don’t think the Osakans around me switched to Standard Japanese, but I think they toned it down a bit, maybe flattened out their intonation for my benefit.
One other comment, at one point I had a reference showing the different pitch accent patterns of the different dialects of Japan. If I dig it up, I’ll post some of the info.
Hello My name is Azusa who is a native Japanese speaker lives in Canada.
I have been raised in Japan moved to Canada 2007 and teaching Japanese language.
I wanted to know if the average (i.e. unaware of pitch rules in Japanese) highly fluent foreigner
in Japan is producing misaccented Japanese.
Probably…
I don’t think highly fluent foreigners in Japan is producing serious misaccented Japanese…
However I have to say I have seen only a few non-Japanese native speakers who are truly highly fluent.
Because, I think there are not so many good accent learning sources for non-Japanese native speakers who
are learning Japanese.
I still believe this Alex’s video explains about accent very logically and clearly.
So that it will help and encourage learners. I would like to recommend this video to my students.
I have close to zero experience of Japanese (except some martial arts related terminology plus a few hours of Teach Yourself Japanese in the mid 1990s), but nevertheless I don’t find the concept of pitch accent confusing at all. Moreover, after seeing the video, I think the two pitches are as different as the major/minor distinction in music or even black/white for that matter. On a general level, that is - of course I can’t predict what pitch this or that word should have since I don’t know any Japanese.
How anyone can “speak Japanese” without having a clue about the pitches (even the fact that they exist!) is beyond comprehension (same thing with Chinese tones, Swedish/Norwegian pitch accent etc.). I agree with Bortrun that it’s better to (at least) be aware of the phenomenon than not.
I would like to answer those questions.
Are Japanese people aware of pitch?
I have to say “No”…Pitch is too natural to me. I had to learn how to teach “pitch”
to non-Japanese native speakers.
I have not known much about pitch until when I started teaching Japanese!!!
Do most learners who have ignored pitch but lived and studied hard in Japan have a noticeably foreign accent as a result?
Once again “No”. Of course, there are some people who have ignored pitch but lived and studied hard in Japan have a noticeably
foreign accent. But not so many as long as I know.
Do learners of Japanese who learn to pronounce all the sounds well necessarily also get pitch right or do some people get all the sounds right, yet still get the pitch wrong?
I am not so sure about this…
Do Japanese people think it is important for foreigners to learn pitch? If they learn correct pitch, will they notice?
I think it is important for foreigners to learn pitch. Because Japanese people will really respect those people
who have really good accent and easy to listen. plus, they will feel more confident to talk to Japanese people.
If they learn correct pitch, I will notice! that is for sure!
I hope this information will help!
Asking whether Japanese people are aware of pitch is like asking if English speakers are aware of stress. Maybe aware is not the right term. They don’t think about it, but if someone says a word with the wrong pitch, they’ll notice it right away.
@Jeff "I have close to zero experience of Japanese …How anyone can “speak Japanese” without having a clue about the pitches (even the fact that they exist!) is beyond comprehension "
I can assure you that I speak Japanese with relatively little accent and had no clue about the existence of pitch, and I am not alone. ( For reference here is one of my videos in the series of the seven secrets of language learning in Japanese). I don’t sound like a native, but natives have no trouble understanding me.
@ alexandre
You asked for input from native speakers and we got it. I am delighted with their participation. Thank you.
Just as an example, Steve, in the first ten seconds, you say BEnkyou no HImitsu. But both 勉強 and 秘密 are accentless words, so they should be flat: beNKYOU NO HIMITSU. I’m not arguing that it matters or that you should change that, just that it can be heard right away.
They don’t think about it, but if someone says a word with the wrong pitch, they’ll notice it right away.
Yes exactly!