Japanese Sound Effects

Posted on 11. Oct, 2007 @ 6:29 pm by in Books, Culture, Language Views: 851

じゃじゃん〜♪ A book compiling a lot of Japanese Sound Effects is available on J-List.

The Japanese words for the sounds that animals and other things make were always something that interested me, but never something I took the time to study seriously.

My current job in technical translation doesn’t bring many across my desk either… Other than ガチャ！ for the sound of components “Click”-ing together anyway.

I remember way back when I was a youngin’ being floored by the fact that a roosters “cock-a-doodle-doo” is known as “koke-kokko”! In Japanese.  “Koke-kokko??” It sounds nothing like that!  I naively thought. Later when I knew enough Japanese to explain to my Japanese friends that in American English they say “cock-a-doodle-do”, it was my turn to be laughed at.

J-List has a book in-stock called Japanese Sound Effects that has lots of sound effects all in one place with great illustrations. Here is a scan of an excerpt from the animal section.

This frog page describes the sound of a jumping frog, it’s, “PYON!”. This “pyon” sound is also used at the end of 「うそ」, which means “lie”. It’s not on this page, but you can also tell some silly story, and then say, 「うそっピョーン！」 Which will convey, “I was just kidding!” – and will also make you sound like a elementary school kid.

Other than asking random Japanese people it’s pretty tough to look these sounds up, so this book looks like it could provide a bit of fun.

Does anyone have any favorite Japanese sound effects? Put them in the comments if you do, I’d love to hear!

I kind of like the sound that heavy rain makes… ZAAZAA 「ざあざあ」. Here is an explanation of ZAA ZAA on the web in Japanese.

Enjoy!

- Harvey

  • http://www.victorymanual.com Alex

    I like しーん, the sound of silence.

  • Brian

    I like “kyuum”, the sound your heart makes when you experience love at first sight.

  • Alejandro

    I love ドンブラク which is the sound the peach from Momotaro makes as it’s going down the river. I guess it describes anything that’s floating.

  • http://www.japannewbie.com harvey

    Haha, those are great! Shinnnnn is a great one :-) Kyuun is awesome too!

    I’ve never heard of ドンブラク. It doesn’t come up much in Google either, where did that come from?

  • bingobangoboy

    I’m no expert on sound effects (nor on Momotaro), but just for reference, the sound in question is presented as “どんぶらこっこ、どんぶらこっこ” in my version of Momotaro (yes, it’s written in hiragana rather than katakana, but that’s probably because it’s a kid’s book)

  • http://www.japannewbie.com harvey

    Ahh I see it now! Thanks! It’s amazing how “difficult” kids books can be when you never hear the vocabulary used anywhere else.

  • kaxxina

    I have heard that japanese onomatopoeia could be written in hiragana to emphasize that it’s a soft sound. Thoughts?

  • http://ikimashokie.nutang.com Jess

    うそっピョーン！… That is just begging to be squealed in a singsong voice.

  • J

    “I have heard that japanese onomatopoeia could be written in hiragana to emphasize that it’s a soft sound. Thoughts?”

    Whoever you heard that from has it backwards. Sound words are put into katakana for emphasis; hiragana is neutral.

    As for fave words…ぽつん and its humorous cousin ちょこん maybe. A well-placed ぬっ is good for a giggle, as is ぽわ〜ん.

    It was watching Japanese cooking shows back in the day that first got me into sound words. From さくっ to じゅーじゅー to じわ〜, etc. Japanese has a huge and sort of neat vocabulary to draw from that can add a lot of color to your everyday conversation. Anyway.

    Anyone really interested in the subject who can handle an all-Japanese book should pick up 現代擬音語擬態語用法辞典. It’s a great addition to any bookshelf, IMO.

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