Distinguishing meaning of 「 庭」 and 「には」aurally


In the sentence, 「私の家の庭には小さな池があります」 the sound 「には」 appears twice in a row.
When listening but without any writing to inform interpretation, how will I
know whether to interpret the first 「には」 sound as the kanji 「 庭」 or as the
hiragana 「には」?




In this case, you can distinguish using the pitch accent. 庭 is pronounced like
にわ【LH】 (i.e., 平板 accent) and には pronounced in isolation is にわ【HL】. 庭には is
pronounced as にわにわ【LHHL】. (には within a sentence is pronounced like には【LL】
after a non-平板 word.)

When two words are pronounced exactly the same way including the pitch accent,
the context is the only clue. If you can distinguish _night_ and _knight_ ,
_too_ and _two_ , or _their_ and _there_ in English conversations, the same
method works in Japanese, too.




In this case, you can distinguish using the pitch accent. 庭 is pronounced like
にわ【LH】 (i.e., 平板 accent) and には pronounced in isolation is にわ【HL】. 庭には is
pronounced as にわにわ【LHHL】. (には within a sentence is pronounced like には【LL】
after a non-平板 word.)

When two words are pronounced exactly the same way including the pitch accent,
the context is the only clue. If you can distinguish _night_ and _knight_ ,
_too_ and _two_ , or _their_ and _there_ in English conversations, the same
method works in Japanese, too.

