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Level: Onomatopoeia

Learn Japanese with JapanesePod101.com! You might not be familiar with the word “onomatopoeia,” but it describes a type of word you probably use all the time. Do you say things like, “bang,” “smack” or “woof?” If so, you are using onomatopoeia, which is simply a word that sounds like the things or action it’s describing. Onomatopoeia is incredibly common in English, and it also has an incredible number of uses in Japanese.

This Japanese lesson is here to provide an in-depth introduction to the world of Japanese onomatopoeia. You’ll learn about the two types of Japanese onomatopoeia and how they are used. You’ll also find some excellent examples and plenty of information about working onomatopoeia into your Japanese vocabulary.

learn Japanese onomatopoeia


This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 7th, 2009 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Onomatopoeia . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

50 Responses to “Onomatopoeia #1 - Getting Started”

JapanesePod101.com says:

Konnichi wa Mina-san!

Do you already know any Japanese onomatopoeia? Which is your favorite so far? Tell us about it. And be sure to tune in next time as we study them.

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Alain says:

Onomatopeia !
来週のぎたいごを待って、ワクワクします。

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Eric says:

been waiting for this lesson

the onomatopoeia I always use are: ごろごろ, ぼろぼろ and こつこつ :twisted:

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neil.m4 says:

Peter - I have to tell you straight. This is really uninteresting … yawn!!!

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marstronaut says:

Well, I would have to say that my favorite onomatopeia are peropero and shabushabu :wink:

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Green Airplane says:

Loved it!
I’ve heard a few lessons covering onomatopoeia, so far they’ve all been so much fun (moslty thanks to Sakura-san :grin: )
remember the kid in the zoo lesson? (I know it’s been a long time ago)

mama, are wa nani?
dore?
guu guu
are wa Sakura-san yo

This series is gonna be legen –wait for it– dary!

incidentally, I don’t know if this is the place to point out typos, but you wrote ‘Dao’ instead of ‘Doa’ in the lesson notes (page 3, romaji transcript, ‘Dao ga batan to shimatta’)

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David says:

I’m a fan of ニコニコ- the sound of smiling! Also, ニコニコ動画 is a fun site for watching videos. :grin:

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Giovanni says:

I like the fact that Eric used an onomatopoeic word to manifest his lack of interest (or his wit)…

I agree that a language that uses a lot of this kind of words sounds very primitive.

On the face of it, saying things like, “he HAHA smiled”, “I was GRRGRR angry”, “I ZZZ ZZZ slept last night”,”my heart was BUMBUM when I saw her”, “I feel TSTS skeptical,” and so on, does not sound very smart! But that is what its fascinating about Japanese…

I understand from conversation with Japanese people that you can pretty much create your own Japanese mimetic words. What is important I think is to learn the “grammar” of Japanese onomatopoeia.

This is all the more interesting as you get really close to how language was (and is) formed and the links with brain development and human intellect. Especially with mimetic word which are some sort of sensory metaphors. Its like watching a Kandinsky picture, when senses traverse boundaries, screeching sounds, become jugged lines, sounds levels colour brightness, and feelings…

Why do we mingle senses? Why do you say that cheese is sharp? This is what makes us human, our capacity for metaphors, to engage in cross-modal abstraction, the extract the pure meaning of sharp weather in taste, shape, sound…

If you think about the case of yojijukugo, there are apparently 40,000 of them and japanesepod covered about 50 (i.e., 0.125 per cent), so don’t expect to learn only from podcasts!

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AndamanIslander says:

whaddayamean there’s almost no gitaigo in English? You’ve never been to a SWANK restaurant? Never had the HEEBIE JEEBIES? There’s no use being WISHY-WASHY about this…English is full of unrecognized gitaigo…

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Giovanni says:

“For example Yamaguchi (2003) argues that there are more than 1,200 onomatopoeic and mimetic expressions in Japanese, which is about three times more than in English. Some studies try to explain this phenomenon by pointing out that Japanese does not have a wide variety of verbs, as English for example, to express subtle nuances of action, and therefore it is necessary to express various nuances by onomatopoeia and mimetic words (e.g. Jorden 1982)”

“Flyxe also cites the study by Kubo (1997), where according to him 78% of the onomatopoeic and mimetic expressions that appear in the novels of Kenji Miyazawa have been translated without using these types of expressions.”

Translating Japanese onomatopoeia and mimetic words HIROKO INOSE

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Ed says:

i like using パンパン
after a nice meal お腹がパンパン

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rigo says:

Hello there
im gonna have fun with this
Sakura san is perfect for these series
niko niko

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Thomas says:

いきいき、むしゃむしゃ、くたくた

でも、「むしゃむしゃ」は、可愛くて、一番好きなのです。

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Rhys says:

Cool lesson, I’m looking forward to this series!
I don’t use these very much because I don’t know that many…
But I like ピカピカ ドキドキ

Do we have to open another my feed to get these lessons?

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仁居流 says:

シイン!! :shock:

つごい! :eek:

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Mayumi says:

Green Airplane-san,

Thank you for pointing it out. I fixed it.
Thank you! (ぺこっ: onomatopoeia describing my bow to show my appreciation.)

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Hiroko says:

AndamanIslander san> Maybe EnglishPod101.com should start a lesson on English gitaigo! :mrgreen:

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Peter says:

Alainさん、お上手。

Ericさん、hopefully this will be a good series! I used to use べろべろ quite a bit ;)

Neil.m4-dan, ouch! ;) Appreciate the feedback, though.

Marstronaut-san, lol. I too like the later!

Green Airplane-san, Sakura-san is awesome! I definitely remember that lesson!
Thanks for making my day with a quote from Barney-sama. ;)

And thanks for pointing that out! Here is definitely the place to do it. Open transparency. ;)

David-san, that is a good one too, and I believe it made the cut. :)

Giovanni-san, thanks for the interesting posts and for helping to keep us on our toes. One of the most challenging things about this series is the grammar of Japanese onomatopoeia. This was a lot more challenging than the short final podcasts make it out to be. We’ve learned a ton in the process, as this has been a fun series.

And yes, many Japanese do create their own on the fly.

As for yojijukugo, at 50 a year, we should finish up right around the year 2808 (I need to check the stardate). I believe episode 293,021. I’ll have to check with Naomi-sensei as she is in charge of ciriculum for the millennium. ;)

AndamanIslander, thanks for the great post. Yes, we should start a list of them. :)

Giovanni-san, very interesting. You should contact our academic team. e-mail us contactus@japanesepod101.com.

Ed-san, 今お腹がペコペコ。 ;)

Rigo-san, couldn’t agree more. :)

Thomas-san, haha. Nice!

Rhys-san, yes, this series should be really good! As you’ll hear Japanese use these phrases again and again. If you want just these lessons, yes. Good idea to grab another feed.

仁居流さん、:)

Mayumi, thx!

Hiroko, I like that idea.

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Alain says:

Very good list, Teskal-san !
This gitaigo serie can continue until 2808 too :wink:

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プチクレア says:

I think these lessons will a great fun. The subject of 擬態語 is especially fascinating…

I mostly use わくわく, ぺこぺこ, and I love どろどろ.

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Thomas says:

一番嫌いな言葉は「ねばねば」だ。Because I mostly don´t like to eat ‘nebaneba mono’

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Thomas says:

Peter san, it may be also be interesting to start a little series about japanese idioms, i. e. sentences like 花より団子、水に流す、雨降って地固まる、猫に小判、油を売る、雀の涙 and so on. What do you think?

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Steffie says:

“Bera bera” ga suki desu. Nihongo o bera bera hanashitai desu!

(I like “bera bera” and hope to speak Japanese bera bera — smoothly and fluently — someday!)

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lola says:

キラキラ

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spidey says:

チュウチュウ
:kokoro:

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asahi_nysurf says:

I think this is pretty good. More tools and knowledge to add to the language toolbox. :razz:

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Lou says:

懐かしい!。。。フィリピンに帰宅してからあまり使うことがありませんのでリフレシュしましたね!。。。ダンスコンペまであと二日。ちょうハラハラします! 頑張ります~ :hachimaki:

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Lou says:

Thanks to this site!…More power!

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John says:

I’m so excited about this!! I would love to learn more of these and how to use them. As usual, :dogeza: to jpod101!

I use a few with my girlfriend, but I use ペコペコ the most, I think.

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タネ says:

I tend to use ぺらぺら,わくわく、ニコニコ、めちゃくちゃ、ぼろぼろ

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Mayumi says:

タネ-san,
In what situation, do you use ぼろぼろ?

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asahi_nysurf says:

残業後の時!

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Naomi says:

asahi_nysurf -san

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

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asahi_nysurf says:

(゚∇^*)  よろしくお願いしますNaomi先生!

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Doug says:

Boy, I really needed these lessons. I noticed that Japanese use onomatopeoia *alot*, but I found that many of them (espeically the gotaigo) are untranslatable in English, unless you translate as verbs. Pretty awkward. So I never use these much, simply because I never understood them. Even basic ones like “niko niko” or “batan” are surprisingly hard to translate into English.

I learned some because we children’s books to my little girl (2 years old) in Japanese, but those are mostly the gion-go sound effect words.

Greatly appreciated. Thanks!

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Jessi says:

Dougさん>
I think children’s books can be good for learning a lot of interesting Japanese phrases! That’s great that you’re reading them to your daughter :smile:
Glad you’re enjoying the lessons!

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すし says:

I learnt a really funny onomatopoeia today - くるくるぱー
You have to say this word with ‘action’ :wink:

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mayumi says:

すし-san,

Please be careful of using this onomatopoeia! :wink:

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Fusanosuke says:

a little notice for the Expansion Section for this lesson:

the sound file for the line
ドアを開けてください。
is wrong.

It is linked to トマトソースのふたを開けてください。
instead of the correct one…

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Naomi says:

Fusanosuke ーsan

Thank you so much for pointing out the error. I’ll report it to the audio editing team. :dogeza:

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Raichu says:

I haven’t read the earlier posts so gomen if I’ve repeated something… Nice lesson, but a few comments.

According to my dictionary ukiuki is indeed based on uku “float”, and it can be written in kanji (not sure how common that is in practice though).

English does have some gitaigo, like “pell mell”, “helter skelter”, “wishy washy”, “niggle”, that describe condition, appearance, feeling.

Looking forward to the rest of the lessons on this.

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Naomi says:

Raichu-san
You’re right. Ukiuki did come from a verb “uku” and became onomatopoeia. But it’s rarely written in Kanji. Actually ukiuki appears in onomatopoeia lesson 12 again. So please check out that lesson too. :grin:

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キャロライン says:

I think if the onomatopoeia can add to word bank will be better! :razz:

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Andrew says:

My favorite onomatopoeias are キラキラ, ピカピカ, ユラユラ, and ペラペラ.

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Topi says:

This seems really interesting series and it’s nice to hear familiar hosts too :)

It’s been a while since I last listened to Japanesepod101 and I came here before after a long break and tried the new lessons and everything… They had changed so much and had new hosts and I didn’t feel comfortable. It’s great to hear your voices, Peter-san, Sakura-san :) .

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Wytse says:

ニョキ ニョキ Nyoki Nyoki!

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kaite says:

The voc with audio is wrong :/ in hiragana it says いびきをかく and in romaji it says いびくをかく. which one is correct? :???:

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Naomi says:

kaite-san
Thank you for letting us know the error!!
I’ll fix it right away. :wink:

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kaite says:

Thank you^_^ :smile:

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