It’s been four and a half long years since Nihonshock released its original Basic Japanese cheat sheet, and finally I got around to making another freebie!

Today I’m releasing Cool Japanese, which is less serious than my previous sheets but still packed with lots of great content. I tried to focus on topics that were interesting (even if they were a little obscure or advanced), and writing examples that were not only useful but fun to read. Plus, I sprinkled tons of my favorite vocabulary and phrases throughout. The target audience is JLPT level N3-1, but beginners will probably find something too.

There are even a couple Easter eggs in there from Steins;Gate and Fist of the North Star. Can you find them? (^^)

Head over to the Cool Japanese page for the download! It’s 100% free and I encourage everyone to share it with their friends, followers, classmates and study buddies.

Note that this cheat sheet is digital only!!
It is not (and will never be) a member of the printed Japanese Cheat Sheet Pack.

(However, it may–at some point in the very distant future–be a member of a separate set of printed cheat sheets.)

Many of you have probably noticed that I’m behind on updating my site, but I haven’t forgotten about it or stopped working behind-the-scenes.

It’s been more than a year since I first released Nihonshock’s Japanese cheat sheet pack, and in that time it became clear to me that I needed to take the product just a little bit further.

Therefore, I am now re-releasing it. The regular price will increase from $25 to $27, but in exchange you’ll get one additional printed sheet (Onomatopoeia), and a sturdier lamination than before.

However, since I’m doing a pre-order sale right now, you can buy them for $20 USD! The pre-order price ends on October 17 and they ship on October 18, so get on board now (you know I don’t do many sales)!

Check out the cheat sheet site and this post in particular for more details.

Thanks everyone for supporting Nihonshock and helping to make this possible!

Of course, Japanese also has onomatopoeia (which they call 擬態語 : ぎたいご). They have LOTS of it, and not just silly comic book sounds either. If you’ve been studying Japanese for more than a couple weeks, you probably already know a couple: ちょっと (a little) is an onomatopoeia, and so is ちゃんと (correctly, obediently) and ゆっくり (slowly). Sometimes we don’t even think of those words as onomatopoeia, but they are.

Even a certain lightning-wielding, yellow mouse character’s name turns out to be a simple fusion of sounds which means “sparkle-squeak” (actually, I think I like the English name better…). Anyway, my point is there’s so much onomatopoeia in Japanese that it will make your head spin (the sound for dizziness would be くらくら, by the way).

In fact, Japanese has so much onomatopoeia that they use them to describe all sorts of things, many of which (like dizziness) don’t actually make a sound. Maybe that seems strange, but we have some very similar words in English too, for example “dilly-dally” or “wishy-washy”. Just try to imagine if there were literally hundreds of words like that, and that on a given day you’d probably hear, read or use at least 50 of them.

Yet despite how common onomatopoeia are and how important they are for things such as casual conversation or reading fiction, they seem to be regarded as irrelevant by a lot of teachers and teaching materials. Common ones are taught as adverbs and that’s about it. The common perception among native Japanese speakers is that these words are “easy” because all they do is convey a sound. No kanji = easy.

Well I’ve got news for the native speakers: these words are NOT easy and they DO require special attention. It’s exactly because these words are not tied to kanji that they take on multiple, sometimes unrelated meanings and develop their own peculiar nuances and usage quirks (I seem to remember Japanese speakers complaining about this aspect of English vocabulary, no?). No kanji = less restrictions on usage = more vagueness and confusion.

In this article, I’m going to attempt to give readers a framework for understanding and using onomatopoeia.

Onomatopoeia Forms

The first thing that you need to know is that there are three basic forms an onomatopoeia can take.

Not all words can take all the forms (the three examples above are actually more flexible than most). Also, sometimes different forms of the same onomatopoeia will have somewhat different meanings, though they are usually either the same or strongly related. The important thing is just to be aware that onomatopoeia in Japanese (when used in a sentence) appear in one of these forms.

The second thing to know is that the particle you should associate with onomatopoeia is と. One of と’s primary functions is to mark quoted speech, such as in:

彼は“こんにちわ”と言った 。
kare wa “konnichiwa” to itta.
He said “hello”.

But と also describes sounds in exactly the same way:

彼はごくごくと飲んだ 。
kare wa gokugoku to nonda.
He drank making a gulping sound.

In fact, the と in the TO-ending words above (にこっと、にやっと、こそっと) is the particle と. The particle is actually built into the form (therefore, don’t add any other particle when you use them).

The Double and RI forms of onomatopoeia are trickier, as each word has its own usage nuances. Some words will almost always come with a と, some will always omit their と. As I’ll explain later, some words are even treated similar to nouns and can be used with particles like の and に, but the basic rule of thumb is: the particle to use with an onomatopoeia is と (even though it is often omitted).

Pseudo-Onomatopoeia

One of the things that complicates the issue of learning onomatopoeia is that in addition to words like ちょっと and ゆっくり, which are so common that we don’t really think of them as onomatopoeia, there are also words that sound like and which may even be used like onomatopoeia, but aren’t.

You probably know a couple of these already too: いろいろ is an example. For all intents and purposes, you could consider this word an onomatopoeia, but its meaning is derived from the kanji (色々) rather than the “sound” of the word. Other examples of this kind of pseudo-onomatopoeia are 段々（だんだん） and 次々（つぎつぎ）.

Since these words aren’t really onomatopoeia, you have to be much more careful about which particle you select (if any). The above-mentioned three can all optionally take と, but others such as まだまだ（未だ未だ）, 別々（べつべつ）, and 元々（もともと） can never take と. Still others such as 堂々（どうどう）、延々（えんえん）、and 朗々（ろうろう） will always appear with と. Don’t worry about remembering all the specifics, just understand that not all words which sound like an onomatopoeia are.

And Japanese has one other another kind of fake onomatopoeia which is made by doubling adjective or verb stems (~I form). The meaning of the resulting word is dependent on the stem, so usually these aren’t too hard to figure out. For example, 熱い (あつい – hot) becomes 熱々（あつあつ） and 浮く(うく – to float/be cheerful) becomes うきうき (in high spirits). These doubled-stem words are kind of a middle-ground between “true” onomatopoeia and the “pseudo-” ones which I mentioned above. Their usage is fundamentally the same as true onomatopoeia, except that you’ll never find them in RI or -TO form.*

*: there is one exception that I know of: のびのび （伸びる） → のんびり

Using Onomatopoeia

Okay, so now that you kind of have an idea what exactly an onomatopoeia is in Japanese, it’s time to look at how to use them.

There’s four basic usage patterns that you will find onomatopoeia in:

The reason onomatopoeia exist and the reason we use them is to describe. But essentially there are two and only two things which onomatopoeia can describe: either an action/process or a condition/state of being.

Which kind of description you are making affects the grammar you will need, hence I have distinguished between “adverb” (describing an action/process) and “adjective” (describing the state/condition of something) functions.

Individual onomatopoeia can be tightly restricted to one certain usage, or they can have multiple meanings each with a different usage, or they can have one core meaning that can be applied both ways. This can be a headache for learners, but only if you take it too seriously. Onomatopoeia are supposed to make sentences more colorful, to add emotion and spice. They’re fun! Without onomatopoeia, Japanese might as well be just one boring newspaper article about stock prices and exchange rates. But anyway, back to the topic…

The ADVERB usage (describing an action) is the default function of an onomatopoeia and also the simplest. It’s simple because you just stick it in front of the verb you’re describing, and decide whether or not to use と. Some words will require it, but in most cases it’s optional.

In cases where it’s optional, adding the と helps bring out the aural aspect of the word, so it’s less common in everyday speech and more common in creative writing. Including と also helps prevent word-order confusion if there’s something between your onomatopoeia and your verb.

The ADJECTIVE usage (describing an object/condition) is actually a specialized application of an adverb. Grammatically speaking, the onomatopoeia wants to be an adverb, so we need to do some linguistic acrobatics to make it modify a noun.

How do we turn an adverb into an adjective? We “format” it with either とした or している. Don’t concern yourself with the meaning of とした／している here because there really isn’t one, we’re just using the formless verb する as an intermediary between our onomatopoeia and our noun.

とした is kind of the “correct” way to make an adjective usage, and している (usually abbreviated to してる) is the “casual” way, but they’re both doing the same thing: taking a sound and “formatting” it so that it can modify a noun.

Because constantly “formatting” onomatopoeia is kind of inconvenient, a lot Adjective-natured onomatopoeia have developed a different usage. An Onomatopoeia with a N-ADJECTIVE usage can be used similarly to a noun. “N” is the perfect letter to represent these words, not only because they have some similarities to nouns, but because by happy coincidence they are mostly used with the particles の and に (and sometimes even な, like a NA-Adjective).

Note that although these words have some grammatical similarities to nouns, it usually doesn’t make any sense to use them as objects (を). And if you find them with で , it’s probably actually the TE-form of だ／です, not the particle で.

The SURU usage is very handy. You simply pair the onomatopoeia with the “formless” verb する, and the resulting verb means “to act/feel/occur/be” in whatever way is described by the onomatopoeia. So for example, くらくら which I mentioned at the beginning of the article describes dizziness and is used with する. The typical usage of this is:

頭がくらくらしてる。
atama ga kurakura shiteru.
My head is spinning.

One important thing to note about the SURU usage of onomatopoeia is it usually only makes intransitive verbs (verbs which don’t take objects). To make these verbs transitive, you need to use the causative form: させる. Therefore:

トムの頭をくらくらさせた。
Tom no atama o kurakura saseta.
I made Tom’s head spin.

Sure, you could consider these to be adverbs. But if an adverb (such as どきどき) is used almost exclusively to describe one particular verb (する), and that verb is basically meaningless, wouldn’t it be more helpful just to think of it as a verb unit?

Common Double-form Onomatopoeia

Common RI- and TO-form Onomatopoeia

Onomatopoeia Cheat Sheet

If you are interested in improving your onomatopoeia, check out Nihonshock’s digital “Onomatopoeia” cheat sheet. It contains 340 onomatopoeia and pseudo-onomatopoeia, complete with usage notes, alternate forms, synonyms, and more.

Get it for $2.50, about the price of a cup of coffee.

Interested in things like counters, time expressions and grammar, and time-related vocabulary? Head on over to the Cheat Sheet Pack site and check it out. The digital version of this cheat sheet is only $2.50 USD by Paypal, and you get instant delivery. Enjoy!

Regarding future digital releases

I may eventually release two or three more sheets from the full pack, depending on how successful this first PDF release is. How ever, I will not be releasing the full set digitally.

I do plan to release at least one more completely new digital cheat sheet, sometime in November. The tentative title is “Cool Japanese” so stay tuned!

The cheat sheet PDFs I have released in the past were designed to be printed. They were split into two pages (a front and a back), and were sized just like a sheet of paper. Unfortunately, there’s a couple shortcomings with that. First of all, the cheat sheets contain very small Japanese text, very light and delicate colors, and almost no margin around the edge. That’s asking a lot for your run-of-the-mill home printer.

Also, there’s the fact that some people just prefer a digital document, even if they could get a print copy. I personally believe the cheat sheets are more helpful if you have an actual printed copy, but I understand everyone’s got a different way of things.

Changes from the previous (print) version:

• Single-page, wide layout (just like your computer screen)
• Text is now selectable
• Colors have been adjusted to look better on a computer screen
• Only vector and text data, so you can zoom forever without loss of quality (this also reduced the file size to just 225KB)

I also fixed some formatting inconsistencies that were present in the printed version, basically just some of the color-coding in the example sentences.

But this is the internet, where links and files speak louder than words, so go and download your copy now! I hope you like it!

At last, the time has come to unveil what I’ve spent the last several months working on: a pack of Japanese cheat sheets for intermediate to advanced Japanese learners.

No doubt this is the single largest project I’ve ever tackled. I spent literally hundreds of dollars on reference books, probably more than a hundred hours dissecting real-life Japanese materials, and hundreds more hours applying my very best language and organizational skills. The result? I think I got (almost) the entire language onto nine sheets of paper.

Nihonshock’s Japanese Cheat Sheet Pack

• Basic Japanese (a new-and-improved version of the old sheet)
• Advanced Grammar
• Advanced Verbs
• Numbers and Time
• Spoken Japanese
• Natural Japanese
• Beyond Vocabulary
• Keigo
• Kanji

It’s not quite done yet. I still want to take time to polish and “test drive” everything and also get plenty of native-speaker checking. I’m putting my name and reputation on these, so it has to be perfect. That’s what I’ll be doing in June, so don’t expect much blog activity this month either.

The cheat sheet set (9 sheets in all) will be offered as laminated high-quality prints and priced at $25, which I think is reasonable considering they contain several times the amount of information similarly-priced books have, in a unique format.

I won’t go into detail here about the sheets because I made a sub-site specifically for them, loaded with details. So… go check it out! Feel free to leave questions or comments here if you have any, since the product site is not commentable. Note that there is a FAQ section on the product page, so if you’ve got a question the answer might already be there.

Thanks for supporting Nihonshock!

What is this?

This is a “cheat sheet” for the Japanese language. It is an attempt to condense and organize as many of the basic elements of the language onto one sheet of paper as possible.

How do I use it?

The intended use of this document is for you to download it, print it on two sides of one sheet of paper and keep it wherever you need it (in your Japanese textbook, on your desk, in your pocket, etc).

It’s possible to keep the cheat sheet on your computer, but it won’t be anywhere near as handy or portable as a printed version, and you’ll need to do quite a bit of scrolling and zooming because of the small font size.

What information is inside?

Page 1

• Formal (polite) verb forms
• Informal verb forms
• Neutral verb forms
• Verb conjugation guide for U-Verbs, RU-Verbs and the irregulars (suru, kuru)
• Hiragana chart
• Katakana chart
• Kanji chart listing all JLPT N5 (previously: Level 4) kanji.
• Chart of the forms of de aru (desu)
• Adjective/Adverbs usage chart

Page 2

• Core particles: は, が, を, に, と, で, も, か, へ, の, や (wa, ga, o, ni, to, de, mo, ka, e, no, ya)
  • Usage points
  • Example sentences color coded for easy vocabulary tracking
• Assisting particles: だけ, しか, ほど, より, でも, くらい, ばかり, から, まで (dake, shika, hodo, yori, demo, kurai, bakari, kara, made)
  • Example sentences color coded for easy vocabulary tracking
• Common grammatical words and patterns
  • Example sentences color coded for easy vocabulary tracking
• Verbs for giving and receiving
• A small space to add a couple small written notes of your own

Who is this for?

This document will be most useful for beginner to intermediate Japanese learners. A beginner will find the document to be more of a roadmap to what information they should study next and how it fits into the “bigger picture,” and an intermediate Japanese learner get more use with this document as a reference for review.

Why are there four versions?

There are four versions of the file in order to accommodate for users in different parts of the world (North America uses different paper sizes from the rest of the world), and to provide users with a choice regarding how Japanese text is written: using the Japanese hiragana script, or using romaji (phonetic representation in the western alphabet).

What this document is NOT

This document is in no way intended to be a substitute for serious study and learning. Acquiring a human language with 2000+ years of history is a massive undertaking, and this cheat sheet provides only the bare minimum explanation for topics that have great depth.

Nor is this document a comprehensive overview of Japanese language. I’ve tried my best to include as much of the most useful and basic elements as possible, but to get this onto 1 sheet of paper, many things were omitted.

Changes from the old version

Aside from a complete, from-scratch graphical overhaul in Adobe Ilustrator (the old version was made in Microsoft Word), this new version contains updated and expanded information. Here is a pretty complete list of changes:

• “Polite” verbs forms is now more accurately called “Formal” forms, and the command form ～nasai has been moved into this category accordingly.
• Instead of marking forms that cannot be made into a verb with koto/no, noun-able forms are now marked.
• Added abrupt command forms in the informal category.
• In both the formal and informal categories, the causative form of kuru has been corrected to kosaseru, not koraseru
• Added to the neutral verb forms category: Even (if)…, To do too much…, To do… and so on, To seem to want to…
• The note about using verbs as nouns with koto or no is now in the footer.
• Added a note about potential rudeness with the word darou.
• Added a note about how desu/da changes when noun-ified.
• Changed the na-adjective noun form to the form without sa, since this is the more common method (note added)
• Added the continuous/combining form for na-adjectives.
• Changed the old explanation about easily confused i-adjectives to the true difference (the ~ei thing is just a shortcut, no i-adjectives end in ~ei but there are a few na-adjectives that end in い and are not preceeded by an e-line sound.). Added a couple commonly confused na-adjectives also.
• Added a note about the adjective ii, because it always conjugates as yoi.
• Made numerous changes to explanations and example sentences for the particles.
• Added the particle no.
• To the common grammatical words/structures section, added: ka mo shirenai and no you na/ni
• Removed tame from grammatical words section, to make room and because it was already mentioned in the informal verbs section on page 1.
• Added a note that kudasaru is typically used as kudasai.
• Added a small space for the learner to write a few notes of their own.

Final word

Please comment and let me know what you think of the cheat sheet, if you notice any mistakes or if you have any suggestions for improvement. I’ll release minor updates to the cheat sheet whenever I get a new round of prints, but the next major update probably won’t be until next year.

In any country, the start of a New Year is a time to reflect upon the past and to make goals and plans for the future. In the English-speaking world, we have “New Year’s Resolutions” but in Japan they have 新年の目標 (shinnen no mokuhyou).

How did you do last year? What are your goals for the new year?

A look back…

Nihonshock started in August of last year, so it isn’t quite half a year old yet, but I’m very happy that the site has started to mature and come to life. Everyone who has something to say seems to like the site and its content, and I love the warm and fuzzy feeling i get from looking at my Google analytics and seeing that people are arriving here and finding exactly the information they wanted.

Those of you who have been visiting for a while know that the site recently got a pretty thorough graphical overhaul (see pics below). I felt that the old scheme was uncoordinated, loud, and felt very packed-in because of the high contrast. The new paint job gives things room to breathe, cuts back the red, and improves the overall page flow.

It’s hard to believe that a year ago I was so clueless about web design that I didn’t know the difference between a Class and an ID (it’s true!), and now I’m hand-crafting date sprites and optimizing my template’s php code. It just goes to show just how much a person accomplish in a year.

A look forward…

Notice how in the old version, nihonshock’s tag line was a blog for Japanophiles but in the new version was changed to language & stuff? Well, when I came up with the original tag line, back before I had written a single post, I wasn’t really sure what sort of content there was going to be on nihonshock or what people wanted to see.

30 posts later, nihonshock’s content has a clear direction and personality, hence the new, more descriptive tag. So basically, I’m going to run with this “language & stuff” theme this year and see where it goes!

My first major project this year (other than clearing FFXIII) is to update the cheat sheet. Whereas the old one was composed in Microsoft Word, I’m redoing it from the ground up in Adobe Illustrator. The finished product will be easier to read, contain more complete and better organized information and will also correct a few mistakes that were found on the first version. Also, I’ll be getting professional prints… but more on that later. (Some of you may have already realized that I have a tendency to fall behind schedule, but I’m currently shooting for a mid-January release.)

Hopefully by the time spring rolls around (mmm… spring rolls…), I’ll have implemented my second major idea, which is some kind of weekly content. I haven’t decided what the content will be yet (except that it will almost certainly be language-related), just that I want to include something that will keep the site fresh, since my real posts are kind of sporadic.

Also heading into spring, I’ll be working on guest posts for some other Japan-related blogs around the net. Feel free to contact me if you have a blog somewhere and you’d like me to write something for you!

In the summer you’ll probably start to see more interactivity at nihonshock. This would include polls, contests, games and other things like that.

I am really looking forward to my first full year of improving and expanding nihonshock.

Also on the drawing board…

In order of likelihood (more to less):

• more cheat sheets
• a nihonshock mascot
• video posts
• a travel section
• a Japan bookmarks section
• a Q&A section (for Japanese learners)

On a personal note…

My new year’s resolutions are…

• Speak perfect, natural Japanese!!! (my top goal for 6-7 years running, actually)
• Get a good camera and learn the basics of photography
• Read more books, in both Japanese and English
• Get an S on Evans EXT (Jubeat), become a Y3
• Make more money, spend less
• Start waking up earlier (6:30am would be awesome)
• Stop picking at my fingernails… (….no, bad Lloyd! I said stop!!!)