This is a pitch accent test, not a lesson: 20 common Japanese words, four possible patterns, and the contour drawn over every answer so you see exactly where the pitch rises and drops. Every word is shown with the particle が, because two of the four patterns only differ on the particle. The accent numbers come from the NHK accent dictionary, as cited on English Wiktionary.
In short
- Four patterns: heiban (no drop), atamadaka (drop after mora 1), nakadaka (drop inside the word), odaka (drop on the particle).
- The accent number tells you after which mora the pitch drops; 0 means it never drops.
- Take the 20-question test below, then retry the ones you missed; look up any other word in the pitch accent dictionary.
The four pitch accent patterns
Standard Japanese has one pitch drop at most per word, and the drop can only be in one of these places. In the boxes below, a raised box is a high mora, a low box is a low mora, and the red mark shows where the drop comes. The last box is the particle が.
Heiban平板
Flat: rises after the first mora and never drops, not even on the particle.
車 (くるま, car): accent 0
くるまがAtamadaka頭高
Head-high: the first mora is high, then the pitch drops at once.
意味 (いみ, meaning): accent 1
いみがNakadaka中高
Middle-high: rises after the first mora and drops somewhere inside the word.
砂糖 (さとう, sugar): accent 2
さとうがOdaka尾高
Tail-high: high to the last mora of the word, then drops on the particle.
家 (いえ, house): accent 2
いえがTake the test
20 words drawn from a pool of 64 JLPT N5 and N4 words, five of each pattern, in a new order each time. Pick the pattern, read the answer, move on. Nothing is saved.
Your result
| Pattern | Right | Asked |
|---|
Missed:
How to read a pitch accent number
Dictionaries write the pattern as a number. Count morae, not syllables: がっこう is four morae (が・っ・こ・う), and きょねん is three (きょ・ね・ん). The number is the mora after which the pitch drops. とけい [0] never drops; いま [1] drops after い; さとう [2] drops after と; やま [2] is two morae long, so the drop lands on the particle. If the number equals the mora count, the word is odaka; if it is smaller but not 0 or 1, it is nakadaka.
How to train pitch accent after the test
- Look up the words you missed. The pitch accent dictionary and test on this site shows the pattern for thousands of words, with recordings for many verbs and adjectives.
- Learn why the patterns exist. The guide to Japanese pitch accent covers the four patterns, mora counting, and how the accent of a verb or adjective moves when it conjugates.
- Say whole sentences, not single words. Pitch in a sentence depends on what comes before and after each word. The Japanese shadowing routine gives you six sentences with audio at two speeds, and the shadowing materials by JLPT level page says what to use after that.
- Record and compare. Your own ear is the only pitch grader you have outside a classroom. Play the model, then your take, and listen for one thing at a time: first the drop, then the rise after the first mora.
Frequently asked questions
What is Japanese pitch accent?
Pitch accent is the pattern of high and low pitch across the morae of a Japanese word. Standard (Tokyo) Japanese has four patterns: heiban, atamadaka, nakadaka and odaka. The pattern can separate words with the same sounds, such as 橋 (bridge, pitch drops on the particle) and 箸 (chopsticks, pitch drops after the first mora), and it is a large part of what makes speech sound natural.
What does the accent number mean?
The number says after which mora the pitch drops. 0 means no drop (heiban), 1 means the drop comes after the first mora (atamadaka), and a number equal to the length of the word means the drop comes after the last mora, on the particle (odaka). Any number in between is nakadaka. Dictionaries such as the NHK accent dictionary give this number for every entry.
Why does the test show the particle が after every word?
Because heiban and odaka words sound the same on their own. Both rise after the first mora and stay high to the end of the word; the difference only appears on the next particle, which stays high after a heiban word and drops after an odaka word. Showing が makes every question answerable.
Does pitch accent change by region?
Yes. The patterns on this page are for standard (Tokyo) Japanese, which is what dictionaries, textbooks and broadcast speech use. Kansai and other regions have different patterns for many of the same words, and some dialects have no lexical pitch accent at all.
How many words should I learn the pitch of?
Start with the words you say most, not with lists. Check the pattern of a new word when you learn it, say it with the particle a few times, and compare yourself with a recording. After a few hundred common words, the patterns of similar words start to feel predictable, and shadowing full sentences does the rest.
Last reviewed November 6, 2026. Accent numbers: NHK accent dictionary values as cited in English Wiktionary ja-pron entries (CC BY-SA 4.0), through the quiz bank of our pitch accent tool; patterns are standard (Tokyo) Japanese. Mora splits follow the dictionary readings. No audio is used on this page because synthetic voices can place the pitch drop in the wrong place.