Grammar Info

N4 Lesson 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

Structure

どんどん + （と） + Phrase

Details

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About どんどん

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.

Related

Examples

--:--

    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.

    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.

    彼女(かのじょ)がどんどん綺麗(きれい)になる。

    She will progressively get prettier.

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      どんどん – Grammar Discussion

      Most Recent Replies (9 in total)

      • Kirumi

        Kirumi

        Didn’t think of that at all, I’ll do that now. Thanks for the tip

      • Fuga

        Fuga

        Hey @Kirumi !

        Since this question is for the grammar point どんどん, だんだん should trigger a hint instead of accepting it as an answer. It seemed like it was showing it as an accepted answer due to our input error, so we have just now fixed this!

      • JeroenDeWachter

        JeroenDeWachter

        I am really struggling to accept the explanations/translations for this grammar point.

        ‘progressively’, ‘steadily’ and ‘gradually’ are synonyms in the English language and represent a constant change over time so should be the translations for だんだん if I’ve understood anything of it.

        To me it seems that ‘steadily’ has at some point been confused with ‘steadfastly’ as the latter carries the ‘strong’ connotation of どんどん and now everyone just goes along with it.

        Any English majors here who can either confirm the above or lay my doubts to rest?

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