Fun with Japanese Onomatopoeia

One of the things I’ve gradually learned about Japanese is how many sound-effect words, or onomatopoeia, exist in there. Every language has sound-effect words, but I noticed that Japanese language and culture are particularly descriptive. I guess that’s why Japanese aesthetics and modern-day manga are so popular too. Anyways, recently JapanesePod101.com has introduced a new series just about onomatopoeia, and although I was skeptical at first, I gave it a try.

As the series explains, there are two types of onomatopoeia in Japanese. Some are genuine sound-effects words, like nature-sounds, animal-sounds, etc. Other Japanese-onomatopoeia convey states, like being angry, happy, etc. I knew some of the sound effect words, but not the latter words, so I was often confused by things my wife.

For example (sorry dear), if she was really irritated by something I did or said, she would grumble イライラする,¹ which coincidentally was in one of the recent lessons. This is a state of being irritated. According to the lessons, if you said イラっとする this means being irritated for a moment. It turns out that knowing these onomatopoeia actually really help in Japanese conversations. In another recent example, my wife her friend and I were at starbucks, and I teased my wife in front of her friend for being ガミガミ (onomatopoeia for nagging). I knew I said something I shouldn’t because she looked at me a bit shocked, which I admit was kind of satisfying. That means I said something that hit the mark (in other words, correct, not foreigner-style Japanese). Of course, I was joking, and clarified, but I was glad to see the lessons apply very easily to real life. And of course, I love my wife a lot, so I honestly don’t feel she is a nag.

Or, another example is ワクワク which means to be really excited about something good that will happen. So, my wife and I are going to Paris tomorrow for a weekend trip, and as a kind of birthday gift, and she is pretty excited. She was excited to pack today, so I said to her (if I recall right): ワクワクね！　(excited, aren’t you?) Again, I knew I hit the mark because her reaction told me I said it correctly, not with the slight delay Japanese often do when try to make sense of foreigner-Japanese in their heads.²

So, if you want to really improve your conversation skills in Japanese, not necessarily for the JLPT (which doesn’t test on it), then spend time studying onomatopoeia. The JPod lessons are pretty easy-going on this, so even if you are a beginner it’s not hard to pick up. Almost all onomatopoeia just end with the verb する and repeat twice. So, once you know to look for it, it’s easy to both say and pick up on.

Unfortunately, the amount of onomatopoeia is really large, and especially for the “state” onomatopoeia, there’s just no good definition in English. So, for example ワクワク above, I have use three or four words to explain it and to get the subtle nuances to differentiate it from either ドキドキ (heart-pounding) or ハラハラ (fearful anticipation as opposed to something good). It’s definitely an acquired skill all its own, but definitely worth some time and investment. Good luck!

¹ Tae Kim, who runs the helpful Guide to Japanese page, stresses the importance of not using romaji in explaining Japanese terms. I decided to follow that policy, expect for things like obscure Buddhist terms and such (since most Japanese wouldn’t even know them). Hence no more romaji here.

² When you’re first learning a foreign language and speaking to native speakers, you can tell if you said it right or not, by how quickly and naturally they react. I finally noticed this recently with my wife’s friends. If I said something not quite right, there’s an extra half-second where people are making sense of what you said, before they say something innocuous like “Yeah, right” or something. If I say something more correctly, I tend to get a more natural, faster response. It’s important to watch for this, as it will tell you what you’re doing right and what you’re still don’t wrong. Language is useless if you can’t communicate well. I’ve met plenty of fellow students learning Japanese (or Vietnamese when I was in college) who hadn’t grasped this point and studied all in vain.

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