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.)

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.

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!

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.

THE NEW VERSION IS HERE

Alright, I so started this blog about a month ago. Posts are starting to build up and I’m starting to feel at home here lately. I decided it was time to start dishing out some real content, otherwise I’m just another ranting Japanophile. So for the last week or so I’ve been hard at work on a top secret project, and now it’s done!

I present to the world The Nihonshock Japanese cheat sheet!

What is it?

First things first: this cheat sheet is intended to be a supplement to your Japanese studies, not a replacement. The information here has been condensed, minimized, abbreviated, and generally beaten to tiny pieces with a sledgehammer in order to get as much as possible onto just two pages. This cheat sheet will be most useful for helping you to recall information after you have already learned it.

That said, even if you haven’t yet learned a lot of the grammar and words appearing on this cheat sheet, you may still find it useful as a road map to new information, and to help give what you have learned some different and perhaps better context.

How to use

Download it, print it (2 pages/1 sheet of paper front and back) and keep it in your notebook, textbook, on your desk or wherever else you need it. You can use it in it’s digital from, but owing to the small text size be prepared for lots of scrolling and zooming.

Information contained

The guide is built into the following sections:

Page 1

• Polite Verb Forms
• Casual Verb Forms
• Neutral Verb Forms
• Conjugating Verbs (RU vs U verbs and the irregular verbs suru and kuru)
• Forms of de aru (the being/equality verb)
• Adjective/Adverb form guide
• Hiragana and Katakana charts
• JLPT Level 4 Kanji Chart

Note: The katakana chart includes an aside detailing four easily confused katakana, with a stroke direction guide.

Page 2

• Core Particles with explanations and example sentences
  • wa, ga, o, ni, to, de, mo, ka, e and ya
• Assisting Particles with explanations and example sentences
  • yori, hodo, kurai, dake, bakari, demo, shika, kara and made
• Common grammar patterns with example sentences
  • hazu, beki, wake, tame, tsumori, dake de naku, no hou ga, wake ni ha ikenai, ~EBA ~U hodo
• Regular and polite verbs of giving and receiving

Example sentences for particles are color coded to help make their parts more readily understandable. Note that the distinction between a “core” particle and an “assisting” particle I have made is not exactly the classification used in Japanese (although it’s close), but I found this grouping to be the most expedient and understandable.

Formatting notes

Paper Size

Because I imagine most people will be printing this, I’ve made two versions: 8.5×11 inch for the USA/Canada and A4 size for basically everywhere else.

Hepburn Romanization

Since this cheat sheet is targeted toward beginner to low-intermediate learners, everything is in romaji (except the katakana/hiragana/kanji charts, of course). I may release a version using the “official” romanization method in the future, but right now I’ve just made everything Hepburn (revised), because I believe it’s better for learning and the way most people will prefer. However, I have romanized long o sounds as ou instead of ō.

Serif Japanese

I’ve used a serif style (MS Mincho) Japanese font for on page 1 for the hiragana, katakana and kanji because it shows stroke direction and type better than sans-serif style (ie. MS Gothic). In this respect they can be considered a better representation of the written form.

I noticed after finishing the cheat sheet that page 2 currently uses sans-serif style Japanese hiragana. It’s a small detail and there’s no problem really, but I will probably make it serif in any future releases even if just for consistency’s sake.

What got left out

Of course I would have loved to put anything and everything on this guide (I certainly tried), but we’re talking about a whole language here, so some arbitrary unnatural selection took place. Here are some things I considered but which didn’t make the cut:

• Sentence ending particles: yo, ne, tte ba, etc.
• Some assisting Particles: sae, sura, tomo, koso
• Some verb forms: ~TE+shimau, ~E as a command
• Transitions and Conjunctions: dakara, shikashi, keredomo, tokoro de, etc.
• Honorific and Humble forms (keigo)

The particle の (no)

Yeah…. about that…..
well….. you see…..
umm…..
I kinda….
…forgot about it. (^_^; )

I’ll be sure to put it in future versions, because it’s one of the basic particles.

However, it’s also just about the easiest and most straightforward particle there is in Japanese, so its absence doesn’t really impact the overall usefulness of the cheat sheet.

Feedback

This cheat sheet will be an ongoing and evolving project for nihonshock. Although I’m confident even with the first release that this is already the best Japanese language cheat sheet on the internet, I realize it is not and probably will not ever be perfect.

So if anyone notices any mistakes, typos, inconsistencies, anything I may have forgotten, or anything that could be done better, please contact me or leave a comment and help to make this cheat sheet even better!

Compliments are also appreciated!