Japanese Onomatopoeia for Cooking: Jūjū, Gutsugutsu, Kotokoto, Karatto

Four kitchen sounds to learn first

If you learn only four cooking words, make them these. Together they cover the hot pan, the busy pot, the slow pot and the deep fryer, and you will hear all four in any Japanese kitchen, on television and in recipe videos.

Jūjū is clear giongo: it copies the hiss of meat or fish meeting a hot surface. Gutsugutsu and kotokoto sit between sound and sight, describing both the noise and the look of bubbles. Karatto is gitaigo: it describes a dry, crisp finish rather than a sound.

From a gentle simmer to a rolling boil

Japanese has a small ladder of words for liquid on the stove, and choosing the right step tells the listener how strong the heat is. The table runs from the first small bubbles to a full boil.

The difference between gutsugutsu and guragura trips up many learners. Gutsugutsu suggests something thick and full of ingredients, so it suits curry, oden or a hot pot on the table. For a pan of pasta water or water for noodles, Japanese speakers usually say guragura. Futsufutsu also has a figurative use: anger or an idea slowly building inside someone, futsufutsu to waite kuru.

Frying and grilling: jūjū, pachipachi, kongari, karatto

Frying words describe two things: the noise in the pan and the colour or texture of the result. Jūjū is the sizzle itself, and you will hear it at yakiniku restaurants, okonomiyaki counters and teppanyaki grills, where the sound is part of the meal. Pachipachi is the sharper pop of oil spitting out of the pan, and it often comes with a warning. Kongari is a gitaigo for a good golden brown, the colour of toast or grilled fish skin done just right.

Karatto is the word for fried food that is crisp, light and not greasy. Japanese home cooks often fry karaage twice, nidoage, to get this result, and you will see karatto on many recipe titles. The opposite, food that has gone soggy, is shinnari or betabeta, depending on the dish.

Karatto has two common meanings outside the kitchen. It describes weather that clears up dry and bright, and a personality that is open and does not hold grudges. Both are positive, like the crisp fried food.

Prep work: tonton, satto, shinnari

Before anything goes on the heat, you chop, rinse and blanch, and Japanese has a sound word for each. Tonton is the steady tap of a knife on a cutting board, a sound many people associate with a home kitchen in the morning. Satto means quickly or briefly; in recipes it tells you not to overdo something, such as blanching spinach for a few seconds. Shinnari describes vegetables that have gone soft and limp, either from heat or from being rubbed with salt.

Shinnari is useful because recipes use it as a target: fry the onion until it is shinnari, rub the cucumber with salt until it is shinnari. It is a state you see and feel, so it is gitaigo.

Grammar: how cooking words attach to verbs

Cooking words follow the same patterns as other Japanese sound words. Repeated words such as jūjū or kotokoto can go straight before a verb, with or without to. Words that end in a small tsu, such as karatto and satto, already contain the to and go straight before the verb. Many words also combine with suru to become a verb of their own, and the past form shita lets them describe a noun.

When the sound itself is the point, Japanese adds iu, to say or make a sound: jūjū iu, gutsugutsu iu. In speech the to before iu is often dropped.

Cooking along with a recipe

Here is how the words work together in a real recipe. Nikujaga, a home-style stew of meat and potatoes, is a classic first Japanese dish, and its steps use almost every word in this guide. Recipes are written in plain form or in polite masu form; video instructions and cooking teachers usually use the polite form.

Notice how each sound word tells you when to move to the next step: you chop to a rhythm, fry until the onion looks a certain way, and change the heat when the pot sounds a certain way.

Mini dialogue: in a friend's kitchen

In casual kitchen talk, sound words come up all the time, often with iu and the casual endings ne and yo. This exchange is between two friends making dinner together.

Common learner mistakes

• Using gutsugutsu for a pan of plain water. It is understood, but guragura sounds more natural for water at a full boil.
• Saying kotokoto for food on high heat. Kotokoto always suggests low heat and patience; if the pot is bubbling hard, it is gutsugutsu.
• Using karatto for anything crunchy. Karatto is about a dry, crisp finish from frying or drying. For crunchy vegetables or crackers, words like shakishaki or paripari fit better.
• Forgetting that shinnari can be good or bad. In a stir-fry recipe it is the goal; for tempura or salad leaves that should be crisp, it means they have gone limp.
• Leaving out the verb. In a recipe, kotokoto on its own is incomplete; say kotokoto niru or kotokoto nikomu.

Cook along out loud

Sound words stick best when you say them while doing the thing they describe. Before you cook, ask Mocchi in the chat for a short recipe: for example, Write a simple nikujaga recipe in polite Japanese using five cooking sound words. Mocchi writes it at your level, and you can follow up with /explain and any line you are unsure of, such as the step about frying the onion until shinnari, to see how each part of the sentence works. Mocchi keeps notes on the words you find tricky, so a later quiz can bring back gutsugutsu and guragura until you stop mixing them up.

Then practise the spoken side. In AI Sensei, ask Hana-sensei to play the instructor at a Japanese cooking class and to give you steps with sound words while you repeat them and ask questions such as Kono kurai de ii desu ka, is this about right? Ask the Sensei to speak more slowly at first, and check the session report afterwards for the words you hesitated over.