ザーザー

| 本虫 | 前に進むために |

[jlang-gen]

自己紹介

It's probably time I wrote one of these.

・Gen (they/them)

・1990年代

・神奈川

・N2 → N1

・趣味：読書、手作り、簡単なゲーム、 御朱印、花見📚🪡🎮🎴🪷

・See what I'm currently reading on Natively

2024 N2: ✅

2025 N1: ❎

2026 N1: ❔

I read a lot, both in English and Japanese. One day I want to read 源氏物語 in the original Japanese. My goal for this year is to read one novel in Japanese per month (plus one), and manga in between.

Currently:

8/13 books for 2026

12/12 books for 2025 📚🎉

[quiet-nymph]

Kotankotankotan182 on Instagram

[pururin]

[nihongoseito]

日本語のオノマトペ：カ行 対 ガ行

i was reading monster recently (perfect edition vol. 6 pictured above) when i came across this instance of an onomatopoeia that caught my eye. here's how we can probably interpret these two panels:

upper middle: カタカタ = shaking, trembling upper left: ガタガタ ガタガタ = trembling harder, shuddering

there are two basic differences here:

amount of onomatopoeia: four moras (カタカタ) vs. eight moras (ガタガタ ガタガタ)

quality of consonant: カ vs. ガ

now if you know me, you know i'm going somewhere with this vague "quality" term, but let's hold off on that for just a second to state the obvious: more is more!

more is more

well, duh, right? but it's still worth saying! compare these two sentences:

どんどん暖かくなっていく。 = it's getting warmer.

どんどんどんどん暖かくなっていく。 = it's getting warmer and warmer.

the difference carries over into english pretty nicely. it's a little redundant, or even childish-sounding, but it makes sense! so we can apply the same principle to the monster panel above:

カタカタ = shaking

カタカタカタカタ = shaking and shaking

so, with more of the onomatopoeia, we get more of the action, because it's lasting longer or getting stronger or for whatever other reason. but what about the other change in the onomatopoeia...?

カ vs. ガ

let's take a dip into romaji here: these two kana are ka and ga. thinking about it phonologically, they're a consonant+vowel group. let's look at the consonants:

/k/ = voiceless velar plosive

/g/ = voiced velar plosive

"velar plosive" sounds complicated, but it's just a scientific description of where the consonant is made (the velum = back of mouth) and how the consonant is made (by "exploding" = closing something, in this case your tongue, and then releasing it). what's important here is the voiceless and voiced distinction!

if you've never encountered this distinction before, here's your fun first-timer's experiment: touch your throat and say ssssssss. now do zzzzzzz. feel the difference? your vocal cords (yes, it's spelled cords) vibrate when you do zzzzzzz, but not ssssssss. that's the voicing distinction! sounds that vibrate (like /z/ and /g/) are voiced. sounds that don't (like /s/ and /k/) are voiceless.

ok, sure, but what of this voiced/voiceless distinction? well...you guys remember kiki and bouba? part of the difference between them is voicing: /k/ is voiceless and /b/ is voiced. as it turns out, the physical impression created by voicing is theorized to be universal in humans. in other words, voiced sounds "look" different than voiceless sounds! hence why kiki (voiceless /k/) is spiky and bouba (voiced /b/) is round.*

so what other impressions can voicing make? in general, voiceless sounds give a softer, lighter impression, while voiced sounds give a harder, heavier impression. this can even extend metaphorically to voiceless sounds giving a "good" impression and voiced sounds giving a "bad" impression. let's compare some pairs of onomatopoeiae with /k/ and /g/:

キラキラ /kirakira/ = glittering

ギラギラ /giragira/ = glaring

here's a famous one! the onomatopoeia /kirakira/ (with voiceless /k/) gives the impression of something light and pretty, while /giragira/ (with voiced /g/) gives the impression of something so bright it hurts to look at. we can even do a similar comparison in english: the double /t/ in glittering is voiceless, while the /r/ in glaring is voiced!

here's one that gives a physical impression instead of a visual impression:

コンコン /konkon/ = knocking

ゴンゴン /gongon/ = banging

our voiceless option, /konkon/, sounds like a polite knock on someone's office door. the voiced option, /gongon/, sounds like rapping a metal knocker as hard as you can (or like, a siege engine, lol). again, we can observe a similar pattern in english, with banging containing way more voiced sounds--in fact, in my english, that word is entirely voiced! (put your hand on your throat and test it!)

we can even have sensations playing out this way:

キンキン /kinkin/ = pulsing

ギンギン /gingin/ = throbbing

honestly, i would say neither pulsing nor throbbing is a particularly good sensation, but i definitely know throbbing is worse (or at least stronger...). again, for the english, the /p/ and /s/ in pulsing (the マシな option) are voiceless, while the double /b/ in throbbing is voiced.

last of all, let's return to the example from our monster panel above:

カタカタ /katakata/ = shaking

ガタガタ /gatagata/ = shuddering

i'm sure it's now blindingly obvious what's going on here, but let's spell it out for thoroughness's sake: if you're shaking or trembling a bit, that's カタカタ, but if it gets worse and bigger and harder to control, that's ガタガタガタガタ! basically, as poor detective suk gets more and more scared, his shakes get worse and worse. 可哀想にね。suk刑事、頑張れよ...!!

*there are other reasons for this specific case, too, so look it up if you're interested!

there's only so many sounds out there!

so, what did we learn? well, possibly we learned some useful new onomatopoeia, especially ones that you're likely to see in manga. but also, we learned how, on a very high level, sounds sound the same to everyone. the human vocal organs are restricted in size, shape, and acoustic power, so more or less everyone is making the same sounds as each other (compared to, for example, birds or whales or stars...). that means everyone's brain computes sound similarly, too, and we end up with strong, shared impressions like "/g/ is hard and heavy" or "/b/ is round and buoyant." this is phonology, but it's also phonetics and acoustics, and it's also even neuroscience and cognitive science!

of course, if we want to look at the matter through another lens--especially a cross-linguistic lens--sounds don't actually sound to same to anyone, but that's a story for another time. as always, feel free to send a message with any questions or comments :) みんなで言語学を楽しんでよう！

[gon-iii]

密やかな場所の詩

富士見多聞の近く。このあたりはひっそりとした雰囲気がいい。

石楠花がたくさん咲いていました。

[iamjapanese]

Katsushika Hokusai（葛飾北斎 Japanese, 1760-1849）

Swimming turtles　游亀

[jlang-gen]

My delicate fussy baby hibiscus survived the winter (and my foolishness) and is about to bloom for the first time this year 🥺

[jlang-gen]

In bloom! @dejlige-dage

[thekimonogallery]

Rain in the Fifth Month.  Ukiyo-e woodblock print.  About 1800, Japan.  Artist Utagawa Toyokuni I 

[jlang-gen]

I love craft markets

[jlang-gen]

I got to visit almost all of my favorite craftsfolk this weekend before my body exhausted so that was great :) I went in with a plan and a route, I didn't get lost this time, and I found some new people too!

[occultbleed]

The komusō (literally “priest of nothingness” or “monk of emptiness”) were a group of Zen Buddhist mendicant monks who wandered the roads of Edo period Japan. They would play elaborate tunes on their bamboo flutes as they begged for alms, their faces (and thus, their ego) completely concealed by a distinctive hood woven from straws or reeds. Unsurprisingly, many were recruited as spies or were actually ninja or ronin in disguise, and eventually their temples and their schools were abolished for meddling in material affairs instead of spiritual ones.

[jlang-gen]

There sure are some vitamin deficiencies where once fixed it's like hey wtf do you mean I could've been living like this all along

[kyokoito]

2026.04.13 枝垂れ桜・鶯

薮から出て表で鳴き交わす季節♡ 争うそぶりなく常に一緒に餌探しをする2羽に出逢いました。 つがいかな♡

[jlang-gen]

I'm so excited I'm losing feeling in my legs lmao. Friends, that's not helpful for getting to the event we're excited about

[a-kichi]

時雨之化

[uroko]

紫と緑 ~ Vlad 

[thekimonogallery]

It’s not often that the Tokyo National Museum brings out their kimonos for display - but there is now a great exhibition there.  Too bad it was not a permanent display, and also too bad that not many international visitors will be able to see the temporary display because of the restrictions in travel due to Covid-19.  Hopefully many Japanese will visit to be inspired by the greatness of their past. 

[moonshinemagpie]

Japanese WOTD

Word heard/seen in YouTube vlog today:

積読合宿

つんどくがっしゅく, tsundokugasshuku

Meaning: "tsundoku" is that word you see in untranslate-able word lists a lot, "buying books and not reading them"

"gasshuku" is a lodging house or training camp. You might know about 合宿免許, gasshukumenkyo, which is when someone stays at lodging provided by a driving school to take intensive driving lessons, often over the spring break period.

So 積ん読合宿, in this case, was used to mean "staying home and reading through my TBR books"