paku-paku

when I was away in Yamanashi last week wiping down the bikes after the race, my friend came over and said "first you need to don-don". I didn't have a clue. My japanese is fairly limited but this was one of the many onomatopoeia's that litter the japanese language and I just couldn't work it out. she picked up the bike and bounced it a few times to rid it of the worst of the water. "ahhh" I said, "don-don".

actually it's simple language when you think about it - in the same way kanji (japanese written characters) is fundamentally a drawing of something. consider that in english you'd have to say "pick it up and bounce it off the ground a few times." I'd rather just say don-don. there are countless times and english speaker will be asked for a translation of a word and there just won't be one. japanese is a very formal language but it is also a lot more concise.

the difficulty though is that where english generally has sound words, like 'cock-a-doodle-doo' or 'bang' and 'crash', the japanese also have words to describe ideas or notions. like 'bara-bara' which means scattered or 'giri-giri' which means to just fit or just in time. there's a good page of examples here.

kari-kari.