pronunciation - How important is one's pitch when speaking Japanese?

I'm aware of some words in Japanese that have the same reading but different meaning depending on the pitch of each syllable. The canonical example is はし (hashi), which can mean either chopsticks (HAshi) or bridge (hashi or haSHI).

However, most Japanese language books I have come across ignore the concept of pitch completely, and vocabulary lists never tell you the pitch you should use.

How important is it to speak with the correct pitch? Can I be understood without knowing the pitch sequence for each word?

Answer

It is worth pointing out that in Japanese, different dialects use different accent patterns for the same word.

The Japanese language taught as a foreign language is most likely to be 標準語 (ひょうじゅんご), which is based on the Tokyo dialect. Therefore, probably the “correct” accent pattern to use should be that of the Tokyo dialect (as in your examples of はし). However, of course not every native speaker speaks the Tokyo dialect, and some dialects (such as Osaka or Kyoto dialects) have completely different accent patterns from that of the Tokyo dialect. As a result, I believe that using the “correct” accent pattern is not crucial to make yourself understood.