Translating sfx in manga

Japanese Language Reading
1

hey everyone, I plan on reading more manga and was wondering if anyone had a good strategy for translating the sfx.

I virtually know zero of them. while reading, would you look every single sound up or would just do it once in a while?

also do you have any good sites to recommend for looking them up?

any advice would be highly appreciated.

2

What you basically need to learn is onomatopoeia. There are a few categories and hundreds of words in total unfortunately, so it definitely won’t be easy.

Here’s an article you can use as an intro:

And another good one from Tofugu

3

And here’s a link with a list someone recently posted in the Haikyuu bookclub: http://japan-and-me.com/japanese-sfx/
Though you can mostly assume what they mean by the drawing.

4

I find this site very helpful:

5

Ones that are background sound effects I wouldn’t worry too much about. I’d recommend just looking up ones that catch your interest on occasion. If you look them all up you’ll just drive yourself crazy.

6

I’ve always used this resource and find it to be very helpful: