Japanese sound effects

So Tara wanted me to post on Japanese sound effects, like the one's you see in manga. They replace the American 'biff' 'pow' and 'bam' kind of things you see in comics.

Basically Japanese sound effects are all onomatopoeia. Anyway, Tara wanted me to translate some of the sound effects from the song 'Ponyo' from the Japanese movie "Gake no ue no ponyo" AKA "Ponyo".

My pronunciations are not exactly accurate because I've known of these onomatopoeia for a while and how to pronounce things in japanese, so normally I'd just say pronounce it like it's spelled, but that doesnt really work for people who dont know japanese... ^__^ so bear with my pronunciation guide thingy.


The first sound effects that show up in the lyrics of the song are "Peta, peta, pyon, pyon"

'peta' (pronounced peh-tah) is the sound of slapping feet on the ground. Kind of like a pitter-pattering noise.

'pyon' (pronounced pi-yo-n) is the sound of jumping or bouncing, like a rabbit.

Then there comes "nigii nigii, buun buun"

'nigii' (pronounced knee-ghee)is a grabbing sound, usually attributed to babies who are test driving their ability to grab onto something.

'buun' (pronounced boo-n) just the sound little kids make when they're pretending to be an airplane.

'paku' (pronounced like it's spelled) is the sound of a mouth opening or closing, like that of a fish or someone who's too stunned and cant think of anything to say, but keeps opening and closing their mouth.

'chugyuu' (pronounced choo-gi-you) is the sound of squeezing something cute, or giving someone a hug. Connoted with a 'warm' or 'fuzzy' feeling. Like hugging a puppy.

'fuku' (pronounced foo-coo) is the sound of sniffing or smelling something.

'waku' (pronounced wa-coo) is the sound for excitement or anxiousness, but with a positive connotation of looking forward to something. kind of like how you can feel little kids buzzing with excitement on christmas...it's kinda hard to explain...

and woot! That's it! :D So I'm including a website with a few other japanese onomatopoeia. You can just google that if you want to find out more, there's sure to be tons.

http://www.coolslang.com/in/Japan/PeraPera.php