Quote Originally Posted by Betelgeuzah View Post
Of course but it doesn't change the meaning of the word like it does with Mandarin.

Japanese intonation is extremely easy.
From what I understand the inflections in mandarin word distinguishing is not the exact same thing as intonation. Intonation is used to stress feeling in a word that would other wise be inflected differently. In mandarins case the inflection is the words standard inflection until spoken with something like sarcasm or what not which would then require intonation, the same process for english.