I’m currently learning with Duolingo and even though I can read, I’ve realized I never know which syllable should be accented.
A simple example: みず.
How can I tell if the accent goes on “mi” or “zu”? Is it like English? Like you need to hear the word to know where the accent goes? Or are there rules that let you know just by reading it?
Imbortant to note, the accent in japanese is not stressed like english or french, but pitched. So when you are listening for it in your duoligo, don’t listen for the syllable with attack, listen for places where the pitch goes up or down.
there are 4 patterns of pitch accent. A good explainer is Here, or on youtube from Dogen
みず is あたまだか, where the first mora is high, then the second one (and all the others would be) is low. You can hear the fall on the ず, where it geos from the starting pitch to a lower one