I looked at http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp and http://dic.search.yahoo.co.jp but I didn’t see the tone marks when I searched 先生 on both those sites. Could you explain in more detail with screen shots of how to view the tone marks please?
I usually like Kazumoto’s posts and I like that he refers to romaji as training wheels and not a crutch in the post. If you are interested in learning to speak with an accent that is close to native then Romaji has it’s place in my opinion. Yes there are audio programs and text based courses with audio but how many of them show you the tones for Japanese. I would suggest watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r05ropOnt3s in it Luca Lampariello (a well known polyglot) explains how he studied English pronunciation by marking up text with accent marks to get a native like accent. He recommends “American Accent Training” (AAT) because it’s basically the only for book for students that teaches accents well. Well it seems to me that “Japanese the Spoken Language” (JSL) is the Japanese students equivalent to AAT because it’s the only one (unless I am just not looking at those online dictionaries in the right spot) I know of that gives lessons on tone.
(I go off on a small rant at this point) JSL uses an old form of Romaji (almost everyone hates it in the beginning) with outdated video and text (boring too) but it is used by some of the highest rated colleges with courses in Japanese due it’s focus on the correct use of pitch. I have seriously considered rewriting the book (with kana and accent marks) to make it easier to use but then I think it’s outdated and I don’t own the rights so it would just be a shit ton of work with no reward. I have also considered adding accent marks to more recent Japanese books (like Genki) but then I think to myself that I am not so confident I would be able to do a good job and I don’t own the rights. Then the idea came well I could make my own course but then I remember I suck at Japanese and the idea of me making a complete course is laughable. Then I think well if Skritter or some other online program let it’s users add the accent marks to an existing program then that could work. Hey I just had an idea for a feature suggestion.
Could you make it so Japanese users can add their own accent marks to words and sentences?
(I created a new thread for this question.)