Yes, I think you're right. The teaching methods are probably the biggest cause. I studied Mandarin for a year at Leiden University and the tones were drilled just like you mentioned.

Also, most people who learn Mandarin are aware of the fact that the tones are an essential part of the language. But when it comes to Japanese, there seems to be a divide between people who think that learning pitch accents is essential and people who think their time is better spent on learning other things.

I think a good middle ground is to at least learn about pitch accents until you can recognize them when a Japanese sentence is well articulated. I believe you'll be able to emulate them with enough exposure when you can at least recognize them. The next phase would then be for them to become second nature, but that will probably take many years.

By the way, the following two websites are essential to me when it comes to learning pitch accents:

- https://www.gavo.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ojad/eng/phrasing/index

- https://www.kanshudo.com/searchw

The first link generates images that visualize the pitch accents of sentences that you enter. You can then adjust those pitch accent graphs by clicking on individual syllables. It can also generate the (very robotic) audio files of the pronunciations of those sentences. I add those images to the cards in my Anki deck, and reference them after attempting to pronounce the pitch accent of a word or sentence.

The second link is an online dictionary that includes the pitch accents of individual words. I use it mostly when I need to double check the pitch accent of a word.

user:	SagatPetchy
created:	July 12, 2023
karma:	13