Yes, Japanese has a pitch accent pattern, not unlike Chinese. The word for it is 高低アクセント （こうていアクセント）. You can get by very easily without ever knowing about this stuff, but if you want to sound as natural as possible, then it's something to keep an eye out (or an ear out) for. The best way is just to listen to as much audio as you can get your hands on.... but if you don't have access to that, then many online Kokugo dictionaries use either marks or numerals to indicate which pattern to use. Well, it used to be many. Goo Jisho and Yahoo Jisho did indicate accent in the past, but I think they use the same basic source for their dictionaries, because they both stopped using the numerals at around the same time. If a word has more than one numeral, then that either indicates that both accents are fine, or that it is spoken differently in another region in Japan. The first one listed is (from what I hear) usually the Tokyo standard.
To make it a little less daunting, all i-adjectives are pitched the same as each other (the fall in tone occurs before the ending "い"), and all verbs are too.
はく 【拍】
beat (music); mora (rythmic unit)
A mora is basically a syllable or a unit of sound, the definition of which differs from language to language. Japanese syllables are ideally all given an equal length, and it is the pitch that gives any needed accents.
へいばんしき 【平板式】
"flat" accent pattern
With Japanese in general, unless a word has the accent on the first mora (ie, a “head” accent), then the first mora is always given a lower pitch than all the morae after it. Words that have a “flat” accent pattern are low on the first mora, higher on the second, and from then on stay high and gradually fade back down to a lower pitch. This includes any particles attached to the end of the word. In online Kokugo dictionaries, these words will be marked with a “0”. This particular pattern isn't technically an accent at all, so often these words will be said to have no accent. (And hence the "0"!)
あたまだかがた 【頭高型】
"head" accent pattern
Words with a “head” accent pattern have a high pitch on the first mora, then drop down to a noticeably lower pitch for the second, and stay low from then on. These words may be marked with a “1” at the end, or with a reversed “「” between the first mora and the second mora. (The first dictionary I ever bought uses this second method, but it's entirely in roomaji so I don't know how many other dictionaries do the same.)
なかだかがた 【中高型】
"middle" accent pattern
Words with a “middle” accent pattern have the standard low pitch on the first mora, jump up to a high pitch for the second mora, and then stay high until the mora indicated by an accent mark, at which point they drop back down again and stay low for the remainder of the word and any particles attached. Some dictionaries may mark the accent with a reversed “「” between the last high mora and the successive low mora. Others will indicate the accent with a numeral: “2”, “3”, or higher. A word marked with “2” is pronounced “low-high-low-low…..” (ie, the drop comes after the 2nd mora), and a word marked with “3” is pronounced “low-high-high-low-low….” (the drop comes after the 3rd mora), and so on.
おだかがた 【尾高型】
"tail" accent pattern
A “tail” accent is basically the same accent pattern as a “middle”, the only difference being that the drop in pitch from high to low happens right after the last mora of a word. This means that if the word is said by itself, then the accent is not pronounced, and therefore may sound as if the word has a “flat” accent pattern. However, when a particle or other grammatical structure is attached, then the accent comes into play between the last mora of the word and the first mora of the particle/grammatical structure. These words may also be marked with “2”, “3”, and so forth, or with the reversed “「” at the end of the word.
Some useful examples! (High-pitched morae are capitalized)
はし
箸 (chopsticks) is a "1" (head accent) HA-shi (wa, ga, o...)
橋 (bridge) is a "2" (tail accent) ha-SHI (wa, ga, o....)
端 (edge) is a "0" (flat/no accent) ha-SHI (WA, GA, O....)
はな
花 (flower) is a "2" ha-NA (wa, ga, o...)
鼻 (nose) is a "0" ha-NA (WA, GA, O....)
にほん
日本 (Japan) is a "0" ni-HO-N (WA, GA, O....)
二本 (two long objects) is a "1" NI-ho-n (wa, ga, o...)
See also:
www.everything2.com/node/1763135 --- a very useful and thorough explanation of anything else you might need to know about the pitch accent (in English)
www.nifty.com/dictionary/help3.htm --- right down the bottom is where I got the explanation for the numerals (this one's in Japanese)
www.sanseido.net --- a good example of an online Kokugo dictionary that makes use of these numerals.
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