Kifuku: Japanese Pitch Accent

Pronunciation and listening

Coming to the App Store

Waiting for Apple review. This page describes the version submitted.

Japanese hides a layer the kana does not write. 箸 and 橋 are spelled the same and are not the same word – and the difference is a rule you learn, not a list you memorize.

What it looks like

箸 or 橋? The same kana. Only the place the tone drops tells them apart
箸 or 橋?
The same kana. Only the place the tone drops tells them apart
Four patterns, not a thousand words Every answer carries a drawing of where the tone holds and where it drops
Four patterns, not a thousand words
Every answer carries a drawing of where the tone holds and where it drops
How it sounds, mora by mora The contour over the reading and a Tokyo recording — never a synthesiser
How it sounds, mora by mora
The contour over the reading and a Tokyo recording — never a synthesiser

Description from the store

Kifuku teaches Japanese pitch accent – the layer of the language that kana does not write down.

箸 and 橋 are both はし. 雨 and 飴 are both あめ. Nothing on the page tells them apart; only where the tone drops does. Most courses mention this once and move on, because it looks like a list of thousands of facts to memorize. It is not. It is mostly rules, and this app is built to show you which ones.

FOUR SKILLS MEASURED APART

Rules – where the tone drops in a word you have never seen. This one is measured only on words that are not on your review schedule, so it answers a question your memory cannot fake.
Patterns – which of the four patterns a word has: 平板, 頭高, 中高, 尾高.
Inflection – what happens to the accent when the word changes: 〜ます, 〜た, 〜ない, 〜て.
Ear – where the drop falls in a recording.

You can know the accent of every word on your list and still not predict a new one. An app that averages those four numbers into one has no way to show you that. This one shows it.

EVERY RULE CARRIES HOW OFTEN IT HOLDS

A rule without a number teaches false certainty. "Verbs are accented on the second-to-last mora" is useless until you know how often – so every rule here shows its coverage, counted on a 340,000-entry dictionary and visible to you, not hidden in the code.

REAL RECORDINGS, NEVER A SYNTHETIC VOICE

The system voice does not promise to read 箸 as 頭高 and 橋 as 尾高, and that difference is the whole app. So there is no text-to-speech here at all – only recordings by a Tokyo speaker. Where there is no recording, the button says so instead of playing something we cannot vouch for. This is the one place where silence is more honest than sound.

FIVE LEVELS, NOT JLPT

  1. Four patterns – the mora, the ○●● diagram, and what the four names mean.
  2. Nouns – how the length of a word predicts its pattern.
  3. Verbs and い-adjectives – the rule that does the most work.
  4. Inflection – where the drop goes when the word does.
  5. Compounds – what happens when two words become one.

Accent does not belong to an exam level. 箸 and 橋 come up on the first day and are in no N5 list.

TOKYO STANDARD, SAID OUT LOUD

Everything here is the Tokyo standard – the accent of dictionaries, broadcasting and textbooks. It is one standard among several, not "Japanese". In Kansai many of these words carry a different accent, and that is not a mistake in either direction. The app says so on its own screens, not in the fine print.

SPACED REPETITION THAT KNOWS THE DIFFERENCE

Words come back on a schedule, because they are facts and facts fade. Rules do not come back that way – a rule is not forgotten, it is left unused, and that shows up in your mistakes rather than on a calendar. The two are scheduled differently on purpose.

NO ACCOUNT, NO NETWORK, NO AI

Everything runs on the device. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is tracked, and the app works with the network off. Data Not Collected is not a promise here, it is a description.

FREE AND PAID

Levels 1 and 2 are free in full – including the first predictive rule, so you see both kinds of material before deciding. One purchase unlocks levels 3 to 5. No subscription.

Sources are credited in the app: accent data from UniDic (NINJAL), recordings from the Tofugu and WaniKani pronunciation set.

The description above is the same text that stands on the App Store product page – it comes from the same file.

Common questions

What does Kifuku teach?

Kifuku teaches Japanese pitch accent – the layer of the language that kana does not write down.

箸 and 橋 are both はし. 雨 and 飴 are both あめ. Nothing on the page tells them apart; only where the tone drops does. Most courses mention this once and move on, because it looks like a list of thousands of facts to memorize. It is not. It is mostly rules, and this app is built to show you which ones.

What does Kifuku cost?

Levels 1 and 2 are free in full – including the first predictive rule, so you see both kinds of material before deciding. One purchase unlocks levels 3 to 5. No subscription.

Sources are credited in the app: accent data from UniDic (NINJAL), recordings from the Tofugu and WaniKani pronunciation set.

Does it work without an account or a network?

Everything runs on the device. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is tracked, and the app works with the network off. Data Not Collected is not a promise here, it is a description.

Documents

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