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“Shuwa-Shuwa” is an illustrated book of Japanese onomatopoeia
- bojo 4y agoMy daughter will ask my wife, "Can I please have shuwa-shuwa orange juice?", meaning she wants her to add carbonated water to it. It's entertaining to watch these words used in action because there's no equivalent in English outside of the underlying meaning.
- laurieg 4y agoWhat do you mean by no equivalent? To my ears asking for "shuwa shuwa orange juice" is just like asking for "fizzy orange juice".
- diob 4y agoI've been learning Japanese for a long time as well, and I often hear this response by folks saying there's "no equivalent in Japanese" (aka the reverse). Truth is you can communicate it, it's just communicated differently. Folks like to pretend there are mystical properties to a language, but reality isn't like that.
- thematrixturtle 4y agoIn Japanese there's a very clear distinction, because adjectives conjugate and sounds don't. Sounds also stand alone: it's possible and common to label a drink in a manga (cartoon) as "shuwa shuwa", while labeling it "fizzy" in English would be quite weird. The GP's daughter is really asking for "fizz juice", but again, that doesn't compute in English.
- nhinck2 4y agoLabelling drinks as fizzy is very normal. And it's doubly apt because fizz/fizzy are also onomatopoeia.
- thematrixturtle 4y agoNo, I mean having a freefloating "fizzy!" next to the drink, like the red text here: https://dailyportalz.jp/b/2018/05/13/c/img/pc/i001.jpg https://dailyportalz.jp/b/2018/05/13/c/img/pc/i001.jpg Basically, it's a sound coming from the drink, not a description by a third party (adjective).
- rdlw 4y ago'Fizzy drink' is very common, it's what children call carbonated beverages. In Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, Charlie and his grandfather drink 'fizzy lifting drink', for one notable usage. Edit: oh, I just saw your clarification. That makes more sense
- aikinai 4y agoThey said "outside of the underlying meaning," so I think they meant you can translate it, but there's no equivalent for the type of word? Either way, I agree it was a poor example; I don't see any particular benefit to the Japanese word in this case.
- grapeskin 4y agoFizzy wizzy juice. Fuzzy wuzzy was a bear. Buzzing bumble bee. The difference is that it’s seen as childish in English and people stop talking this way in late elementary school, aside from limited uses (like buzzing)
- shuwashuwabook 4y agoWooow, thanks so much for the reference of our Shuwa-Shuwa book. We are a French-Japanese family and we are delighted to present you our family book project : 100 Japanese onomatopeias illustrated by 100 different artists from 35 countries. Best to you all! The M&M&m&m family www.shuwashuwabook.com
- shuwashuwa 4y agoWooow, thanks so much for the reference of our Shuwa-Shuwa book. We are a French-Japanese family and we are delighted to present you our family book project : 100 Japanese onomatopeias illustrated by 100 different artists from 35 countries. Best to you all! The M&M&m&m family www.shuwashuwabook.com
- bakakid 4y agoI was very glad to find it here (I sent you the link via email as well). Can't wait to receive my copy!
- ralusek 4y agoSo it seems like onomatopoeia means something different in Japanese...because here it seems to just be "any word said twice in a row that may or may not sound at all like the thing they're meant to mimic."
- penneyd 4y agoThis is a good explanation of Japanese onomatopoeia https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/japanese-onomatopoeia/ https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/japanese-onomatopoeia/
- Nadya 4y agoOnomatopoeia are commonly equated to phonomimes but can also include phenomimes and psychomimes. Phonomimes are meant to imitate an actual sound - like "bark" for a Dog (wanwan in Japanese). Most Japanese onomatopoeic expressions come in the double form (the sound repeated twice). There are of course っと and り forms of onomatopoeia but the double form is probably the most common and among the most known ones. Phenomimes are onomatopoeia that depict something closer to an action than a sound - for example "powering up" (can't recall this one sorry) or "to be spinning around" (guruguru). Doubled base onomatopoeia are not unique to Japanese either. Think of "bam-bam", "pop-pop", "click-click", "chirp-chirp", "oink-oink" or a bit less strictly "rattattat". I believe the technical linguistic term for this is called reduplication.
- laurieg 4y agoEnglish seems to go for vowel changes for these types of phrases (click-clack, tick-tock, clip-clop, pitter-patter). Perhaps this is because English has more vowel sounds to work with? Following this, English has some good examples for words that aren't imitating a sound. (Wishy-washy, zig-zag, tip-top).
- quartesixte 4y agoThis is probably a holdover of some Old English phonological features. Most words like this are limited to the i-a, i-o axis which are also vowels in Japanese.
- rjh29 4y agoIf you don't want to buy a book, gitaigo/giongo (onomatopoeia) sites are quite common, e.g. https://onomatoproject.com/ https://onomatoproject.com/
- thematrixturtle 4y agoMy favorite Japanese onomatopoeia is shiin (シーン), the sound of silence. Used both literally and figuratively if you're shocked into silence by something. Interestingly, English has the latter use too, we just write it "..." and it doesn't have a pronunciation. - Do you know where I store my dad jokes? In a dad-abase! - ...
- gus_massa 4y agoIn Argentina we use "cri cri" (that sounds like "kree kree"). It's suppose to be sound of crickets.
- totetsu 4y agoA stand out memory from my visit to Argentina was all the crazy bug sounds. One sounded exactly like the cartoon sound effect of an arrow being shot into a target.
- anthk 4y agoSpain too.
- ukz 4y agoSame here in Indonesia, we use “krik krik”.
- labster 4y agoJapan has the tsukutsukuboshi, which is a cricket that sounds like that. There’s definite animal naming from their sounds. For one species, we get: crow, corvo, karasu, Krähe, cacalotl, gaa, kkamagwi.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- lmiller1990 4y agoAnother fun one regarding silence would be じっと見る（JITTO MIRU）which is the sound of someone staring at something.
- needle0 4y agoI once read Dragon Ball translated into English, and noticed that the author frequently inserted short bursts of onomatopoeia into moments where there would be none if it was a work that originated in English (eg. when a person stepped down onto the ground after finishing levitating). It felt totally natural and unobtrusive while reading it in Japanese, but it suddenly stood out and felt jarring in English. I guess Japanese has a much lower threshold for when an occurrence of something warrants an onomatopoeia. Western superhero comics would only insert written onomatopoeia upon the occurrence of a fairly loud and memorable sound (Creaak! Thud! Wham!); Manga, on the other hand, sprinkles them much more liberally, even with small insignificant sounds and (famously) ambient atmospheres that would make no audible sound.
- goosedragons 4y agoIt's just part of the language. Everything has onomatopoeia. It's not just Toriyama who does it. You will find it in manga all over even stuff before his time. You'll also hear things like "jiiiiii" for people staring in anime too.
- needle0 4y agoUh, I know. I am Japanese, I have tons of manga reading experience over decades. It's just that reading the same work both in the original Japanese and translated English made the difference in threshold more obvious.
- femiagbabiaka 4y agoIf you're interested in a work that showcases a lot of the fun grammatical tricks present in Japanese, I highly recommend the novelized form of the Monogatari series. The animated adaptation tries to keep a lot of it in, but it really can't compare to the written work.