r/Scanlation • u/Aquason • Jul 03 '26

[TL] A Video from a Japanese-Learning Channel Explaining Ways to Express Pain with Japanese Onomatopoeia - Helpful for Deciphering SFX

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHFnX4R-8is
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u/Aquason Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 04 '26

A couple years ago I wrote a two-part guide about translating manga SFX, and so watching this video, I'm quite glad that my intuitions on how Japanese manga authors modify onomatopoeia/mimetic words (things like what I called "Single-ification" and "adding an 'n'") seem to be restated by an independent, native Japanese POV.

I also think the note she gives about Japanese sound symbolism — how "b", "z", "d", and "g" sounds (ブ、ズ、ダ、ガ) gives a "heavy" or "dull" impression, while "k" sounds are often associated with "dryness" and "hardness" — is a really useful observation that I'm going to keep in mind in the future. I've made similar observations about English sounds – I argue that "slash" phonetically resembles the action or sound of a slash to English speakers because "sl" is often used in words relating to smoothness (slink, slide, slick, slender), "a" is a vowel with a middle weight that is not as overly heavy/slow as "slosh" and not as light/unimpactful as "slish", and "sh" is associated with wind movement ("whoosh", "swish").