Kana de Manga Special Edition: Japanese Sound FX!

by Glenn Kardy, Chihiro Hattori (Illustrator)

Have you ever wondered what a cat's meow sounds like in Japanese? How about the grumble of an empty stomach, the wail of a police car's siren or the crash of an ocean wave?

Japanese manga artists rely heavily upon onomatopoeia — sound-effect words — and this special entry in the award-winning "Kana de Manga/Kanji de Manga" language-learning series from Manga University is jam-packed with illustrated examples of those sounds in action.

Featuring nearly 100 Japanese onomatopoeia and their English equivalents in categories such as "Humans," "Animals," "Machines" and "Nature."

Genres: Japanese Literature, Nonfiction, Manga

114 pages, Paperback

First published March 21, 2006

Reviews

[Corri Cunningham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very cute

[Denise みか Hutchins · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only reason I took off a star from my rating was all the romaji. It's my biggest pet peeve and it was especially disappointing since the Yojijukugo book I read from the same series didn't rely so heavily on it. Not to mention that this book included hiragana and katakana charts at the beginning and end; it really didn't need to use romaji. It was very distracting; it's impossible to stop myself from just skipping the kana and looking straight at the romaji, which takes my Japanese reading skills backwards.

That complaint aside, I thought the book was great! The art was a bit lacking in certain areas (especially hands and consistency of line weight) but it was well thought-out illustratively and helped get the onomatopoeia's meanings across, so well at times that I didn't even need the written description to understand. There are some common manga onomatopoeia that weren't included (staring ジー was a notable exclusion) but it was a solid, well-organized collection of words/sounds to get started with!

[☆Meredith (メルたん)♪ · Rating 5 out of 5]

This cute book covers the basics of Japan's onomatopoeia, or basically, Sound FX. (^V^) Unlike in English (or American, whatever), the Japanese use these onomatopoeia in everyday life.
It's helpful to know hiragana and katakana before reading this book, but not necessary as there are romanji translations provided and plenty of kawaii illustrations.
From a dog's "wan-wan" to what you say when you're happy "waku-waku", Kana de Manga: Japanese Sound Fx has so many words that you can add to your vocabulary!
I would recommend it to anyone learning Japanese, especially kids who will love the manga format and not-too-difficult-to-understand portrayals.

[Aarika Dela Torre · Rating 3 out of 5]

nice......................