I really need to understand the sfx and use them so please do help me if you know! I want it as a list of “english” to “japanese” and what are they used for. Thanks.
Things to keep in mind: – infuriatingly, mangaka can and will sometimes create their own effects and reuse them. So if you can’t find one, this is potentially why.
– the effect may be an adjective or a verb stem instead of actual onomatopoeia. Recently I came across one that said たら and I was lost. I eventually searched my dictionary and realised it was the stem of たらす which means “to dribble”, which is what the character was doing. So try a dictionary search if you need to.
– sometimes the sound will change to indicate emphasis, but the sfx database won’t have that. A good example is キー which is like “creak”, but if it’s a really loud or obnoxious sound, it might show up as ギー instead.
If all else fails, and you can’t find a sound, use your discretion and the context to imagine what it is.
ETA: the sfx are always in kana, so if you can’t read it, it shouldn’t be too difficult to use a chart to identify them.
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The best one I’ve come across is [this one](https://gist.github.com/UserUnknownFactor/093a2296c5a4d9ef7b404728ebde94a3) from github.
Things to keep in mind:
– infuriatingly, mangaka can and will sometimes create their own effects and reuse them. So if you can’t find one, this is potentially why.
– the effect may be an adjective or a verb stem instead of actual onomatopoeia. Recently I came across one that said たら and I was lost. I eventually searched my dictionary and realised it was the stem of たらす which means “to dribble”, which is what the character was doing. So try a dictionary search if you need to.
– sometimes the sound will change to indicate emphasis, but the sfx database won’t have that. A good example is キー which is like “creak”, but if it’s a really loud or obnoxious sound, it might show up as ギー instead.
If all else fails, and you can’t find a sound, use your discretion and the context to imagine what it is.
ETA: the sfx are always in kana, so if you can’t read it, it shouldn’t be too difficult to use a chart to identify them.