Dictionary Discoveries: びんびん

Posted on 06. Jul, 2009 @ 10:32 am by in Language Views: 405

Every now and then I have a fun dictionary discovery that I just have to share.

I was looking up びんびん (bin bin) in my electronic dictionary, and one of the example sentences and its translation… jumped out at me.

「バイアグラを飲んでびんびんになった。」
“He swallowed some Viagra and was ready to take on a harem.”

I can’t make this stuff up.

「びんびん」is a gitaigo (擬態語), a Japanese word that describes a “state.” In English these are called mimetic words, or a mimesis, but who knows what that means anyway?

I’m a fan of Giongo and Gitaigo! If you are too, be sure to check out the Japanese 101: Giongo and Gitaigo iPhone application.

- Harvey

  • J

    Interesting! In some latin american countries, “bin bin” is slang for penis:

    http://www.diccionariolibre.com/definition.php?word=bin+bin

  • John Smith ;)

    My friend told me he’s only ever heard びんびん used in porn. That’s what my friend said.

  • KabutoTX

    So what was Harvey looking up!:)

    Rikaichan say it can also mean strong (e.g. beat of music)

  • http://news.fletcher.tufts.edu/reflections/ Luke

    neat paper on the subject here:

    http://web.aall.ufl.edu/SJS/Baba.pdf

    The author did an experiment asking Japanese speakers to narrate and then roleplay a story from a comic strip (sounds like サザエさん to me), and found that the people in the study used four times as many 擬態語 and 擬音語 when roleplaying than they did when narrating. すごいね！

  • http://www.japannewbie.com Harvey

    Wow! That bin bin connection is hilarious.

    And the report looks interesting! Thanks! Adding it to my reading list. Maybe another blog post will come out of it.

    Umm… what was I looking up anyway… I don’t even remember!

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