文法の説明

N4 レッスン 1: 5/18

どんどん

Progressively, Rapidly increasing, More and more

どんどん - Swift change, だんだん - Gradual change

使い方・接続

どんどん + （と） + Phrase

詳細

  • 使用域

    Standard

  • 使用域

    一般

「どんどん」の情報

どんどん (or ドンドン) is one of the countless words in Japanese that represent a particular sound or sensation. These words are known as onomatopoeia (オノマトペ in Japanese). どんどん represents the sound of banging (like on a drum), or the pounding of feet. In this way, it is regularly translated as 'rapidly', or 'quickly'.

Like だんだん, どんどん may be used before almost any phrase.

While どんどん can take the particle と, it is not required. In fact, と is very often omitted from adverbs/onomatopoeic words in Japanese.

Caution

Initially, it can be easy to mix-up どんどん, with だんだん. だんだん is used to express slower changes, and may be thought of as similar to 'steadily', or 'step by step' in English.

  • 毎日(まいにち)ピアノを練習(れんしゅう)しているから、だんだんピアノが上手(じょうず)になってきた。
    Because I practice the piano everyday, I have steadily gotten better at playing. (Slow progression)
  • 毎日(まいにち)ピアノを練習(れんしゅう)しているから、どんどんピアノが上手(じょうず)になってきた。
    Because I practice the piano everyday, I have rapidly gotten better at playing. (Rapid progression)

Fun Fact

When the と particle is used with onomatopoeic words, it is very similar to one of と's main usages as a quotation marker in Japanese. This means that と has a similar role to words like 'went', or 'goes' in English. For example, In English, we would say:

The door 'goes' BANG with the wind.

However, the door doesn't actually 'go' anywhere. This is similar to what と is doing here.

例文

  • どんどん暑(あつ)くなる。

    It will progressively get warmer and warmer.

  • どんどん日本語(にほんご)が上手(じょうず)になりたい。

    I want to progressively get better at Japanese.

  • 先週(せんしゅう)から、彼(かれ)の意見(いけん)がどんどん増(ふ)えた。

    (The number of) his opinions have rapidly increased starting from last week.

  • 日本(にほん)の人口(じんこう)がどんどん減(へ)る。

    The Japanese population will rapidly decrease.

  • 音(おと)がどんどん大(おお)きくなる。

    The sound will get louder and louder.

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「どんどん」に関する文法ディスカッション

最近の返信 (合計4件)

  • mrnoone

    mrnoone

    You can use both answers here (With slightly different nuances)

    As you know, the difference lays in tempo - だんだん would be slower, while どんどん is more rapid. Also, どんどん (comes from drumming noise) sometimes is understood to express continuous change, while だんだん (段々 - kanji used for stairs/steps is used) to express the change that happens in small increments.

    This is why どんどん is most of the time translated as “steadily, rapidly, more and more” while だんだん as “gradually, by degrees, by steps, more and more”.

    When the last translation is used, the nuance is kind of lost though.

    I hope it helps,
    Cheers!

  • Ambo100

    Ambo100

    どんどん → swift change
    だんだん → more gradual change

    I keep confusing these two so the way I’m trying to think about them now is:

    どんどん - Also used as Japanese onomatopoeic in Katakana for a drumming and banging noise, so typically fast.

    だんだん - Derived from the kanji form 段々, you can think of this as ‘step by step’ so typically something more gradual.

  • testing

    testing

    Thanks for those explanations! I feel like they point me in the right direction, but I’m not sure how to differentiate between “steadily” and “rapidly”.

    E.g., どんどん日本語が上手になりたい。( I want to steadily get better at Japanese.)

    If someone tells me that they want to “steadily” get better at it, it feels like “consistent change”, but not necessarily fast. But does どんどん日本語が上手になりたい。 always have the connotations of both “consistently” and “quickly” at the same time? How would I know which one? It feels like most contexts would make both equally likely.

    Same problem with 日本の人口がどんどん減る。(The Japanese population will steadily decrease.)

    After reading the Japanese sentence, I would’ve expected it to decrease rapidly, but from the English sentence I would expect it to be constant, but not super quick.

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