I would like to start adding pitch accent to my cards. How should I grade the cards once I add pitch accent?

Don't change anything about the grading process. Put pitch accent information on the back of your cards, but don't take it into account when grading yourself.

If you force yourself to recall the target word and its pitch accent at the same time, failing to recall either one will mean you must press "Again" on the card. For example, you will have to fail a card if you remember the meaning but not the accent. Piotr Wozniak's 20 rules basically advise against that.

If you consider an item that is composed of two sub-items, you will need to make repetitions that are frequent enough to keep the more difficult item in memory. If you split the complex item into sub-items, each can be repeated at its own pace saving your time.

— Twenty rules of formulating knowledge

To learn pitch accents of individual words, make separate cards. Put the word on the front and its pitch accent on the back.

For example:

If a word has multiple readings, include furigana on the front.

Note that many Japanese words have multiple correct pitch accents. It's often easiser not to make cards for those, since you'll likely get them correct regardless of which accent you use.

You don't need to make pitch-accent cards for every word. Include only words that are common and that you are likely to say often. Roughly the 2,000 most common words, no more.

Tags: faq, pitch

Japanese Pitch Accent Primer

Correctly accenting Japanese words when you speak is essential for sounding like a native speaker, and in some situations essential for communication. In this article, we will introduce you to the way accents work in Japanese, help you understand how to determine the correct accents of words and sentences, show you some commonly confused word groups, and explain how to look up accents in Japanese dictionaries.

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Pitch accent perception

Below is a list of common words, sorted into categories based on their pitch pattern (heiban, atamadaka, nakadaka, odaka). For the sake of clarity, words whose pitch changes depending on usage/context have been excluded. For each of the four categories, choose the 20 words that you feel you hear most often in your daily immersion.

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Understanding monolingual definitions

A typical entry in a monolingual dictionary looks similar to this:

あした [3] 【明日・朝】 （名）
（１）今日の次の日。
（２）夜が終わって，明るくなった時。あさ。

Every dictionary usually has its own, unique system of notation. On this page I primarily use 大辞泉 as an example. If you need help finding monolingual dictionaries, see the Dictionaries resources section.

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